Wreck of the Channel Bandit

Military museum, fire taxes approved by Terrebonne voters
November 25, 2015
Boil water advisory for North Lafourche
November 30, 2015
Military museum, fire taxes approved by Terrebonne voters
November 25, 2015
Boil water advisory for North Lafourche
November 30, 2015

It seems like such a distant memory, now that we are in the midst of this holiday season, when the priests rode in boats as the weather just got warm, in Chauvin and Dulac, Pointe-aux-Chenes and Dularge.

They prayed for the boats, that they should all work well, including the equipment, and they prayed for everyone to stay healthy and that there should be shrimp out there for everyone to make a living with.


With shrimp prices being so low, fishing families aren’t taking care of things like they used to. Painting the keep gets let go an extra year. Replacing a winch cable might wait for a while.

When things break sometimes people die, and that’s what happened Sunday with David Richard.

His boat, the Channel Bandit, a 50-foot steel hull, is rigged for both traditional trawls using the big booms, and with skimmer frames.


He was at David Chauvin’s dock in Dulac just a few days before for some supplies, and was fixing to head back to Cameron, to take off the skimmers and, for the next few months, rely on the trawl set-up.

The call came Sunday, David Chauvin said, that something had gone horribly wrong.

From what could be deciphered, Mr. David was making his way west with the Channel Bandit, and was at Freshwater Bayou at the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway when it happened.


The wind was blowing really hard and they were trying to pick up the skimmer frames. That allows the boat to come in close to a dock.

“They have to fold them to be parallel with the boat,” Chauvin explained.

The boat’s outriggers were in the up position, and the deckhand was on the top of the cabin working with these frames, and then a cable popper and the skimmer frame went back into the water and the boat was off balance and when that frame hit the water, from what the excited deckhand said, the boat turned sideway into the current, which was very, very strong. Water came over the deck and everything started to flood. The deckhand was trying to bust the window of the cabin, trying to get to Mr. David, but he got swept away and with the vessel on its side, with water coming in everywhere, there was nobody left to rescue Mr. David.


Someone was able to rescue the deckhand, but for Mr. David there was no hope, and he remained in his vessel, inside and under the water.

The Coast Guard tried to help and wanted to send divers for him Sunday but the current was just too strong for them to work for the retrieval, which was to be accomplished late that day or Monday.

Maybe something could have been done differently, maybe not, or maybe the cable that snapped was on the winch longer than it should have been, or maybe not.


But now the sinking of the Channel Bandit will be talked about, and other fishermen will keep it in mind, maybe, to stay safer.

The Coast Guard is making more and more safety training mandatory for fishermen, though the new requirements for that only affect boats that go out 12 miles.

Kim and David Chauvin, who came to know and like Mr. David, they think it’s a good idea for everyone and so they were talking Sunday, as they tried to get more direct information about what happened to their friend, about making those classes available right on their dock.


You never know how a little extra knowledge might help in an emergency.

But no matter the circumstances, and whether it could have been helped or not, heaven readied Sunday to receive one more fisherman, something they are used to because there are so many fishermen all over the world and something always goes wrong someplace. And you know that when a fisherman goes up to heaven there is extra rejoicing because Jesus was a fisherman, and so they have plenty to talk about.

Here on earth, we are left with only tears, and hopes that next year, the prayers for everyone to be safe are stronger than ever. •


Walter Sallman’s “Christ Our Pilot” hangs in the cabins of many local fishing vessels. 

 

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