Hilo man among SEATTLE >> David W. Rundall was hoping he soon could stop living in fear while his son skippered the fishing trawler Arctic Rose in the treacherous waters of the Bering Sea.
fishing boat crew
killed off Alaska
David E. Rundall was captain of
the vessel that had a crew of 15Associated Press
Rundall's son planned to start a new job on a tanker and leave the icy Alaska waters -- after making one last trip.
"You always pray it's never going to happen," said Rundall, a West Seattle resident.
But he found himself among family members grieving yesterday for men lost at sea. The Arctic Rose sank early Monday with all 15 aboard.
Coast Guard crews widened the search area Wednesday, but hope for the lives of the fishermen was fading. A Coast Guard official said crewmen in survival suits could not live much longer than 36 hours in the frigid waters.
"We've been spotting debris the whole time, but nothing promising," said Coast Guard spokesman Petty Officer Jim Barker.
Coast Guard officials still were trying to determine why the Arctic Rose sank so fast that the crew had no time to radio for help.
The body of the captain, David E. Rundall, 34, was the only one recovered by yesterday. Nine of the crew members were from Washington state, two were from Montana and the four others were from Minnesota, Texas, Hawaii and California.
As a teen, the younger Rundall "wanted to join the Marines or go fishing, and I didn't want him to do either one," his father said Tuesday.
But the young man set out for Alaska's fishing grounds when he was 18.
His son was a talented skipper who loved adventure but "did everything the safe way," Rundall said.
He had worked his way up to captain by age 28. But he planned to take a job with a tanker-ship company that required less time away from his home in Hilo and his wife, Kari, and three sons, Max, 4, Willy, 12, and Davyn, 14.
The Arctic Rose's engineer, Mike Olney, 46, liked to go commercial fishing with his brother, the trawler's owner, David Olney. In fact, David Olney, who was not aboard the Arctic Rose when it sank, had been swapping skipper duties with Rundall from January until mid-March.
"Mike wanted to be by his brother," said Mike Olney's wife, Adrianne Sue Olney. "There were only two in the family."
Mike Olney loved taking his kids -- Brandon, 16, and Michael, 9 -- swimming or to play basketball.
"Mike loved the kids first and last," his wife said Tuesday from their home in Kendall, Wash., near Bellingham.
The last time he talked with Brandon -- in a call from the Arctic Rose -- Olney promised his son a motorbike.
The boat's cook, Kenneth Kivlin, 55, of Port Orchard, was a decorated Vietnam veteran and a fiercely principled man who did things the right way, not the easy way, his family said.
"He was very, very opinionated and immensely hardheaded," said his son John Kivlin said. "But he had a lot of heart, and he lived his life with bravery and righteousness."
Deckhand Jeff Meincke, 20, was working aboard the Arctic Rose to earn money for college. He had attended Chaminade University in Hawaii for a year but was unsure what to do next. A visit to Alaska with friends convinced him to go to sea.
"He thought it was the greatest thing in the world," said his father, David Meincke of Lacey. "He loved being out there."
For First Mate Kerry Egan, 45, the trip aboard the Arctic Rose was a step toward becoming a captain.
"He wanted to be captain from the first time he stepped foot on a commercial fishing boat 14 years ago," said his sister-in-law, Trish Egan.
Egan, the divorced father of Jennifer, 20, and Jesse, 18, had been a land surveyor in Phoenix, Ariz.. When he moved back to Minnesota 14 years ago, he couldn't find that kind of work and decided to be a deckhand, doing something he loved.
When he came home to Britt, Minn., where he lived with his sister-in-law Trish, and his brother, Doug, Egan would regale them with sea stories.
But he knew the dangers, Trish Egan said.
"He always said he would die at sea," she said. "He knew that was his life, and he knew that was a very, very high-risk job."