ST. JOHN'S -- The Arctic Explorer 'just rolled over,' killing 13 men, because it had insufficient ballast and was too top-heavy, said a survivor of the July 13, 1981 sinking of the research ship.
The survivor, Christopher Martin, was the first witness Thursday at a judicial inquiry into the sinking to suggest there was a distress message broadcast before the research ship went to the bottom between Labrador and the island part of Newfoundland.
Martin was one of 19 men rescued by the coast guard ship Grenfell after 52 hours in an inflatable raft.
The rescue operation did not begin until more than a full day after the Explorer sank, but 'some officers aboard the Grenfell' said a brief distress message had been picked up, Martin said Thursday.
Martin, a seismologist, was awake when the Explorer began listing severely to starboard. The captain turned the ship around to bring the seas onto the starboard side, but the list grew worse.
At that stage 'it was the weather and the wind, in my opinion, holding the vessel up,' Martin said. 'In my opinion, she just rolled over' and sank.
Aboard the Explorer only a month, Martin had spent six months on the Polar Bjorn, built to the same design.
The Bjorn carried 140 tons of fuel oil as ballast, in addition to the fuel it burned, and 80 tons of extra water in ballast tanks, he said. When he first saw the Explorer he noted 'she rode very much higher out of the water than the Bjorn did.
'I doubted in my own mind whether they had bunkers of fuel or water enough' on the Explorer, Martin said.
Seaman Brian Hargreaves was in the wheelhouse when the ship around.
The captain was surprised the maneuver did not correct the list and 'made a comment that there was no oil in the bottom of this,' Hargreaves said.
The seaman said he 'understood that to mean there was no ballast.'
Both Martin and Hargreaves told the lawyer for the ship's owners, Carino Co. Ltd., they were not experts in the field of ship stability.
However, inquiry counsel Eric Facey has questioned several witnesses about stability factors and said an expert would testify later in the hearings.
Martin told Facey there was 'a lot of equipment (stored) high in the vessel,' including 16 cardboard cartons and a number of oil barrels lashed to the upper deck.
While unsure of the weight of the cartons, Martin said they contained seismic cables that weighed about 100 kilograms per cable.
The Explorer was chartered from Carino by Geophysical Service Inc. of Houston and was en route to the coast of Labrador to conduct seismic surveys for British Petroleum.
