Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: The Queen of the North Disaster
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Victoria
STATE: BC
COUNTRY: Canada
NATIONALITY:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/colin-henthorne-a0710144/?ppe=1 * http://www.timescolonist.com/life/islander/the-sinking-of-queen-of-the-north-1.2666677
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
EDUCATION:Attended Notre Dame University.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Canmar (Canadian Marine Drilling, Dome Petroleum), icebreaker, 1982 -83; Coastline Hovercraft Systems, pilot in command, 1986; Miller Contracting (Tug & Barge Division), master, 1987-89; British Columbia Ferries, master, 1987-2009; Western Pacific Marine, mate, 2009-11, first mate, 2010-12; Ultramarine, consultant, 2011; Canadian Coast Guard, rescue coordinator, 2012–.
AWARDS:Keith Matthews Award, Canadian Nautical Research Society, 2017, for The Queen of the North Disaster: The Captain’s Story.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Colin Henthorne has spent most of his life on the sea, including twenty-two years as a master, or captain, for British Columbia Ferries. His career was marred, though, by the 2006 sinking of the Queen of the North, a passenger ferry that sailed down the British Columbia coast. In the evening of March 21, the ferry began its run south from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy, a journey of about 270 nautical miles in what is known as the inside passage. Shortly after midnight, the ferry struck an island. It would eventually sink, but Henthorne and his crew attempted to evacuate all those aboard–fifty-nine passengers and forty-two crew members. He counted those who had gotten into lifeboats and rafts, and concluded that everyone was safe. Later, he realized two people were missing, and they were never found. The accident resulted in the firing of Henthorne and three other crew members, and the conviction of one of the crew for criminal negligence.
Henthorne offers his account of the events in The Queen of the North Disaster: The Captain’s Story. He believes that navigating officer Karl Lilgert, the crew member convicted of negligence, may have made an error, partly due to confusion about a new set of instruments installed on the ship, but contends that Lilgert’s action did not rise to the level of criminal negligence. Investigators and prosecutors alleged that just before the accident, Lilgert had been having either sexual relations or an argument with quartermaster Karen Briker, with whom he had been having an affair, on the bridge of the ship; Briker was also fired. Henthorne dismisses the claim of a sexual encounter on the bridge as mean-spirited. He also defends his own record as a captain, saying he was strict and painstaking, and reveals that he has continued to be haunted by the loss of the two passengers, Gerald Foisy and Shirley Rosette.
“I keep going over it in my head, all the time, where they could have been on board and how they could have gotten missed or missed hearing the commotion and shouting to get out. … I just. I hate to keep saying I don’t know, but that’s the truth,” he told Amy Smart in an interview for Victoria, British Columbia’s Times Colonist. “Two-thirds had gone into the town of Hartley Bay. I thought maybe they knew somebody or befriended someone and went to their house. Maybe they were scared, maybe they were huddled down in a basement in the fetal position. Even when I saw their families show up in Prince Rupert, I still thought, they’re going to be found.” Henthorne, who was hailed as a hero for his efforts the night of the sinking, fought for reinstatement to his job, which was granted and later revoked, and he went on to take a job with Canada’s Coast Guard. He asserts that he was actually fired for raising concerns about safety in the ferry system, and in his book he discusses how to improve maritime safety.
Some critics thought he told a compelling story. “The Queen of the North Disaster is a tightly reasoned and informative account from an eyewitness to a set of events that still remains surrounded by unanswered questions,” related Tom Sandborn in the Vancouver Sun. With Henborne believing that he and his crew were scapegoated by executives of British Columbia Ferries, “readers will have to decide for themselves if they are convinced, but this book provides the resources to support an informed judgment about one of our province’s most serious maritime disasters,” Sandborn observed. A Publishers Weekly reviewer also recommended the book, saying: “This dramatic account will be of interest to those who remember the tragedy as well as readers interested in seafaring.”
BIOCRIT
BOOKS
Henthorne, Colin, The Queen of the North Disaster: The Captain’s Story, Harbour Publishing (Madeira Park, British Columbia, Canada), 2016.
PERIODICALS
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, March 25, 2009, “Queen of the North Captain Gets His Job Back”; May 08, 2013, Jeremy Allingham, “Queen of the North Captain Still Haunted by Sinking.”
Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), November 11, 2016, James Keller, “Queen of the North a Mystery Unsolved.”
Publishers Weekly, January 23, 2017, review of The Queen of the North Disaster. p. 75.
Times Colonist (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada), November 13, 2016, Amy Smart, “The Sinking of Queen of the North.”
Vancouver Sun, December 24, 2016, Tom Sandborn, “Queen of the North Captain Makes Case for What Caused Disaster.”
ONLINE
Harbour Publishing Web site, http://www.harbourpublishing.com/ (August 17, 2017), “Congratulations to Colin Henthorne.”*
The sinking of Queen of the North
AMY SMART / TIMES COLONIST
NOVEMBER 13, 2016 05:20 AM
Share via EmailPrint Article
VKA-Henthorne-0081.jpg
PreviousNext
Colin Henthorne, captain of the Queen of the North: "I'd like people to be aware of things they might not know about, about the imperfections in our industry and B.C. Ferries in particular." Photograph By ADRIAN LAM, Times Colonist
Moments before the Queen of the North struck ground in a marine disaster that would claim two lives, Colin Henthorne woke up to banging on his cabin door.
It wasn’t the first time he’d been roused from sleep to help with a problem, as master of the ship, but this time was different. The calling and knocking were frantic. Henthorne moved quickly, with certainty that — whatever was going on — he would sort it out. But before he was fully dressed, the ship hit ground, hard.
“I knew what it was right away, there was no mistaking it. It pounded repeatedly on the ground and I had this vision in my mind of the ship sweeping along the shore of the island, branches sweeping along the ship and the pounding of that. I knew it was serious and I knew I’d be in for a long night. I knew that much,” he said.
“I didn’t know we were sinking, yet.”
What followed would be an evacuation with fluctuating head counts, a series of lawsuits and lasting impacts for the 59 passengers, 42 crew and their families.
Ninety-nine people would be saved; passengers Gerald Foisy and Shirley Rosette would never be found. Blame would fall on Karl Lilgert, who in 2013 was convicted of criminal negligence causing death. The quartermaster, second officer and Henthorne would also lose their jobs.
Henthorne is telling his version of events for the first time, more than 10 years after he watched the Queen of the North — a ship he considered more of a home than any house he’d lived in — dip to a vertical position and sink below the surface.
In his new book, The Queen of the North Disaster: The Captain’s Story, he addresses questions that are still being asked about the March 22, 2006, catastrophe. How did two passengers go missing? How could a ship that sailed the same course hundreds of times go off course? What really could have happened on the bridge that night?
And should the captain go down with the ship?
“I’d like them to hear my story,” Henthorne said.
“Most of what’s out there is other people’s stories — the company’s stories or versions from authorities or armchair sailors throwing ideas around. I just want my story to be out there, too.”
How do two passengers go missing?
For a long time after the sinking, Henthorne woke up around 12:30 a.m. every night — about the same time he was awakened on the ship. He’d feel panic until he sat up. With difficulty getting back to sleep, he started going to bed at 7:30 p.m. to get enough rest. Finally, he underwent treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, which helped.
Henthorne still seems like a captain, speaking with a deep, authoritative voice and a strong sense of duty, when he talks about what went wrong in the wake of the disaster. He’s enjoying his new career with the Canadian Coast Guard, but over an omelette at a café near his home in North Saanich, he talks about ways he’d tried to make his ships safer on B.C. Ferries.
His book is peppered with safety concerns, some of which he says he raised with B.C. Ferries before the disaster occurred and some that came into play on the night. Among the larger ones are those about the ship’s navigation system and the eroding authority of ships’ masters to make decisions for the crew and vessel. The smaller, more specific ones, he had tried to fill himself: The evacuation checklist used that night was one he created himself.
The evacuation wasn’t perfect, as none are. But any errors were systemic, Henthorne says: His crew did the best they could under the circumstances.
“During drills, I’d always say: ‘The only reason we do this is because everything has gone wrong. Don’t expect everything will go right from this point onward,’” Henthorne said.
“You might get enough things right that it will save you and save the ship. In that sense, it was successful.”
Everyone has a job, in the case of an emergency. But some of the crew members were trapped or injured in the grounding. By the time they made it to the bridge, some were missing shoes or clothing. Henthorne speaks with pride in the way they never complained and rallied to evacuate the ship.
The head-count problems began early. The chalk that should have been there to mark cabin doors as they were checked went missing, as did grease pencils for marking the number of occupants on each liferaft. Numbers were written on hands and counted in heads. It came to 102, while the log book stated 101.
“I knew when I got the count it didn’t jibe with what was in the log book. But I didn’t know at that point if there had been a mistake in counting in the first place, the log book could have been wrong.”
By the time Henthorne got off the sinking vessel, he had personally done a last run through the cabin area and thought everyone was off. The head count would be repeated several times through the night and morning, with numbers changing each time. Initial reports celebrated the successful rescue of all passengers, before it was realized that two were missing.
So how do two passengers disappear?
“I don’t know. I keep going over it in my head, all the time, where they could have been on board and how they could have gotten missed or missed hearing the commotion and shouting to get out. … I just. I hate to keep saying I don’t know, but that’s the truth,” he said.
“Two-thirds had gone into the town of Hartley Bay. I thought maybe they knew somebody or befriended someone and went to their house. Maybe they were scared, maybe they were huddled down in a basement in the fetal position. Even when I saw their families show up in Prince Rupert, I still thought, they’re going to be found,” he said.
He still holds out some hope that they will be found, even if it’s dwindling.
“The more time that goes by, the less likely it seems.”
What happened on the bridge
The most sensational part of the public narrative centred on speculation about what happened on the bridge that night.
Investigations showed the ferry had failed to make a slight course correction while exiting Grenville Channel. Blame fell on navigator Lilgert. The Crown argued Lilgert missed the routine turn because he was distracted by his ex-lover, the quartermaster with whom he was alone on the bridge for the first time since their relationship ended. Both denied that had anything to do with the sinking, and Lilgert maintained he had changed course.
From Henthorne’s perspective, rumours that they could have been having sex on the bridge are absurd.
“Absolutely not. It’s idiotic to even think that way,” Henthorne said.
Instead, Henthorne favours Lilgert’s version of events, backing it up with explanations of conditions and technology. It’s completely plausible that the navigator was making those course corrections and lost sight of the ship’s location, while being foiled by the autopilot system and confusing controls, he said.
“I want to make clear that I don’t know what happened. What I was attempting to do was discuss other possibilities. I don’t think anybody conclusively knows what happened, other than Karl,” Henthorne said.
“And even he has to have some confusion about it or he would have prevented it.”
Going down with the ship
Few people say it to Henthorne directly, but one of the regular questions his daughter gets, when someone learns her father’s role, is: Shouldn’t the captain go down with the ship?
It’s a question he dedicates a whole chapter to, listing examples of cases where a captain has not only kept his life, but been rewarded.
Henthorne says the captain’s role doesn’t end with the ship — the survivors still needed a leader after they disembarked.
In some ways, Henthorne did go down. B.C. Ferries’ attitude toward him shifted in the weeks after the accident, he says, and he believes it’s because of the safety concerns he raised.
“The day of the sinking, the president told me: Anything you need, we’re right behind you. Throughout the first few months, even after their initial inquiries when they were pretty oppositional and hostile, they still told me they supported me. In fact, he said, ‘We support you 120 per cent,” Henthorne said.
So he was surprised when he received the call firing him.
“It was apparent they just wanted me to go quietly,” Henthorne said.
First, he added, B.C. Ferries said it was because of operational requirements, but when it was pointed out that B.C. Ferries was actively recruiting new captains, it said it had lost confidence in Henthorne.
One of B.C. Ferries’ arguments was that the master is always on duty — Henthorne says B.C. Ferries gives masters all the responsibility without all of the authority. It also argued that by allowing things like music to be played on the bridge, which could be heard on radio calls between the Queen of the North and Prince Rupert, he created too relaxed a working environment. Henthorne counters with research showing music and conversation help fight fatigue. He also says he was called the “Bridge Nazi” for his strict rules.
Henthorne won an appeal through the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Tribunal, but lost subsequent appeals by B.C. Ferries.
Henthorne got his foot back in the door with part-time work on an inland ferry, for a company whose president was a Queen of the North survivor, before joining the coast guard. But he’s still affected, he says.
“I’ve had to learn a new job, take up a new career, take a big cut in income. I spent huge amounts of money on my defence and to live on, while I was unemployed,” he says.
“I get angry on a regular basis. … Something will trigger anger — I get a bill that I can’t pay or that I’ll have trouble paying — and I think, I wouldn’t have this problem. So I say, OK I’ll be angry for the next five minutes or 20 minutes, then it’ll go.”
The aftermath of the sinking
By sharing his story, he hopes to shed new light on ways the system can be improved. Despite surviving a sinking ship, he has not been consulted on the gaps that could be bridged to make it safer.
“I’d like people to be aware of things they might not know about, about the imperfections in our industry and B.C. Ferries in particular. And I hope professionals will gain something from it. You can’t solve problems if you don’t know what they are.”
Henthorne’s story is just one of 99 that came off the ship that night. He didn’t hear about what his crew members went through until after the rescue.
“It’s heartwrenching to listen to, and you learn something about human beings and what they’re capable of. I feel kind of powerless in a lot of ways; I’d like to give them the help they need,” he said.
He’s still in contact with many crew members living with post-traumatic stress disorder, he said.
“It is hard to listen to, when you’re hearing how badly their lives were changed. Because they have the same problems. Ten years after the accident, they still can’t sleep, they’re still waking up at night, they’re still having fits of anger they never used to have.
“These are my friends. So I’m always trying to think, ‘What can I do for them other than listen?’ … All of us have had to suffer, for just having been in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Colin Henthorne will speak about his experiences and his book at a free event at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Bolen Books in the Hillside shopping centre.
COLIN HENTHORNE
Rescue Co-ordinator at Canadian Coast Guard
Canadian Coast Guard Notre Dame University
Canada 144 144 connections
Send InMail
Qualifications
I hold a Certificate of Competency as Master of a Home Trade Ship issued by the Minister of Transport for Canada. The syllabus for this certificate encompasses seamanship, astro and terrestrial navigation, engineering, navigation safety, industrial safety, ship construction, cargo work, shipmaster’s business, and law.
Additionally, I hold the following Certificates, issued by the Minister of Transport:
- Ship Security Officer
- Passenger Safety Management
- Specialized Passenger Safety Management, RO/RO Vessels
- Electronic Chart Display & Information System
I also hold a certificate in the Incident Command System, issued by the Justice Institute of British Columbia.
I have 40 years of experience in the profession. My sea time has been in coastal and ocean-going vessels. Vessel types include passenger ships, ferries, tugs, trawlers, research vessels, patrol vessels, hovercraft, offshore drilling ships, offshore supply vessels, anchor-handling vessels, icebreakers, Coast Guard cutters, and training vessels.
Throughout my marine career, I have designed and used standard operating and emergency procedures. I have written ship-specific operating manuals and designed planned maintenance programmes. I have participated in reviews and investigations of various incidents. As a navigator, I draft passage plans and navigate in all situations, including oceanic, coastal, ice, and river. As an independent consultant, I have provided consulting on all of the above topics.
Specialties: Emergency planning
Safety management
Ship-specific manuals and procedures
Ship-handling expertise
Vessel & equipment maintenance programmes
Training See less See less of COLIN’S summary
Follow Follow
COLIN’S Activity
144 followers
It's a definite issue. If people didn't spend their entire lives treating construction workers like second class citizens, maybe millennials would be quicker to join the trades #WorkersNeeded
COLIN liked
See all activity
Experience
Canadian Coast Guard
Rescue Co-ordinator
Company NameCanadian Coast Guard
Dates EmployedMar 2012 – Present Employment Duration5 yrs 8 mos
LocationVictoria, Canada
Ultramarine
Consultant
Company NameUltramarine
Dates EmployedMar 2011 – Present Employment Duration6 yrs 8 mos
LocationCanada
Emergency Planning
Quality Assurance
Safety Management
Vessel-Specific Manuals and Procedures
Vessel & Equipment Maintenance Programmes
Western Pacific Marine, Limited
First Mate
Company NameWestern Pacific Marine, Limited
Dates EmployedMay 2010 – Mar 2012 Employment Duration1 yr 11 mos
LocationBritish Columbia, Canada
Western Pacific
Mate
Company NameWestern Pacific
Dates Employed2009 – 2011 Employment Duration2 yrs
Western Pacific
Mate
Company NameWestern Pacific
Dates Employed2009 – 2011 Employment Duration2 yrs
British Columbia Ferries
Master
Company NameBritish Columbia Ferries
Dates EmployedApr 1987 – Mar 2009 Employment Duration22 yrs
B.C.Ferries
Master
Company NameB.C.Ferries
Dates Employed1987 – 2008 Employment Duration21 yrs
B.C.Ferries
Master
Company NameB.C.Ferries
Dates Employed1987 – 2008 Employment Duration21 yrs
Miller Contracting (Tug & Barge Division)
Master
Company NameMiller Contracting (Tug & Barge Division)
Dates EmployedOct 1987 – Jan 1989 Employment Duration1 yr 4 mos
LocationBritish Columbia Coast
Towing and pushing single and tandem barges up to 8,000 tons deadweight.
Georgia Straits, Fraser River, and Pitt River
(Company is now J.J.M. Construction)
Coastline Hovercraft Systems, Inc.
Pilot-in-Command
Company NameCoastline Hovercraft Systems, Inc.
Dates EmployedFeb 1986 – Oct 1986 Employment Duration9 mos
Pilot-in-Command of a 32-passenger Griffon 2500TD hovercraft operating a scheduled service on the British Columbia Coast.
Canmar (Canadian Marine Drilling, Dome Petroleum, Ltd.)
Second Officer
Company NameCanmar (Canadian Marine Drilling, Dome Petroleum, Ltd.)
Dates Employed1982 – 1983 Employment Duration1 yr
LocationBeaufort Sea
Icebreaker / Anchor-Handling Tug CANMAR KIGORIAK
Icebreaker / Supply Ship ROBERT LEMEUR
Drilling Ship CANMAR EXPLORER
Drilling Ship CANMAR EXPLORER III
Canadian Arctic
See fewer positions
Education
Notre Dame University
Notre Dame University
Field Of StudyScience Activities and Societies: Played on the university hockey team.
Notre Dame University
Notre Dame University
Field Of StudyMathematics and History
Colin Henthorne
Recent News
Congratulations to Colin Henthorne (posted August 17, 2017)
author image
Colin Henthorne was born in Vancouver and grew up in British Columbia. He has spent nearly all his life living and working on the water. He got his first command at the age of twenty-one and his entire career has been dedicated to command. He sailed as a master with BC Ferries starting in 1990 and was fifty-two when the Queen of the North sank. He has continued to work aboard and to command ships. At the time of writing he is a Canadian Coast Guard Rescue Co-ordinator at the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Victoria, BC.
Congratulations to Colin Henthorne
Posted: August 17, 2017
Harbour is pleased to announce that author Colin Henthorne has just been awarded the Canadian Nautical Research Society’s Keith Matthews Award for a book deserving special recognition for The Queen of the North Disaster: The Captain’s Story.
The award is given to a maritime book published the preceding year, which, in the view of the award committee, “offers an important record that would, in the future, be cited by historians.” The jury lauded Henthorne’s book for providing a comprehensive and balanced account of the marine tragedy.
The winners of the Keith Matthews Awards were announced in August at the Canadian Nautical Research Society’s annual conference in Halifax, NS.
Queen of the North captain still haunted by sinking
Former BC Ferries captain Colin Henthorne recounts night that changed his life
By Jeremy Allingham, CBC News Posted: May 08, 2013 6:48 AM PT Last Updated: May 08, 2013 7:41 AM PT
Former captain Colin Henthorne, shown here leaving B.C. Supreme Court in February, recounts the night his ferry sank, in an exclusive interview with CBC News.
Former captain Colin Henthorne, shown here leaving B.C. Supreme Court in February, recounts the night his ferry sank, in an exclusive interview with CBC News. (Jonathan Hayward/CP)
Related Stories
Queen of the North: Mother and daughter's escape story
Jury deliberates verdict in sunken ferry trial
When the Queen of the North set sail on the night of March 21, 2006, captain Colin Henthorne and his crew were set for what should have been a routine voyage down B.C.'s Inside Passage from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy on Vancouver Island.
'I knew we were in deep trouble and I was in for a long night.'
—Colin Henthorne, captain of the Queen of the North the night it sank
According to Henthorne, the weather was crisp and clear and the ship was in excellent condition. There was nothing to indicate that the trip would end with the BC Ferries vessel at the bottom of Wright Sound.
Henthorne told CBC News that after an hour on the bridge, he retired to his cabin and went to sleep, a routine he said happened hundreds of times throughout his career.
Jury out
Jury deliberations began late Tuesday in the trial of former BC Ferries officer Karl Lilgert, who was charged with two counts of criminal negligence causing death following the sinking of the Queen of the North.
But a short time after falling asleep, the captain got a rude awakening. The situation had become anything but routine.
"I was wakened up by someone pounding on my door and shouting at me to get up and get up to the bridge, so I said, 'OK, I’m coming,' and before I could get fully dressed, the ship hit the ground," Henthorne said.
"I knew straight away that we had run aground, there was just no mistaking that. There was so much hard pounding and shaking and banging and the ship shaking and things falling off my desk, and I knew what it was — there was no mistaking it," he said.
"My first thought was we hit ground, and I knew we were in deep trouble, and I was in for a long night."
Henthorne said the ship's alarm bells were ringing at a deafening volume. Once on the bridge, he took a quick look at the radar and another look out the window in an effort to determine the ship's location, but there wasn't enough information available to reach a conclusion.
Henthorne said he quickly reached for the public address microphone and ordered all passengers to the emergency embarkation deck where they would board life-rafts and lifeboats.
The Queen of the North was divided by 11 bulkheads, or compartments, that run across the ship and each one had a water-tight door. Two of those doors remain open during voyages, but in this emergency situation, it was crucial that they be closed to prevent flooding.
From his position on the bridge, Henthorne was unable to contact the engine room to determine whether anyone would be caught and crushed to death if he closed the water-tight doors. It was the first of many life-or-death decisions he was forced to make that night.
Gil Island strike site AGil Island strike site (source: RCMP dive team)
"Although there's an alternate escape from each compartment, I have no way of knowing, from where I am on the bridge if those escapes have been cut off by something else, by damage, by flooding or what," said Henthorne, "By closing the water-tight doors, I could be cutting off the escape of the people who are in there.
"That was the toughest decision I've ever made," he adds, "It wasn't a difficult process to arrive at the decision, as far as I was concerned that was the only decision, but it was a tough one to carry out."
Henthorne ordered a crew member to close the doors. Fortunately, he would later learn, none of his crew was trapped or injured because of the decision.
Controlled chaos on board
Henthorne said his crew headed to their stations in the moments following the crash. By the time he was on the bridge, radio calls had already been made. The captain said he saw the light of a vessel off in the distance and ordered flares to be fired.
The situation was complicated by the fact that Henthorne did not immediately realize that the ship was not aground, but adrift in deep water. According to the former captain, usually when a ship goes aground, it stays aground, but in this case, the Queen of the North had run over a reef, ripped the bottom out of the ship and slipped back out into deep water.
'There was a fear … that it might roll over completely.'
— Henthorne
Then the ship began to list, tipping over to one side.
"There was a fear ... that it might roll over completely, but I ordered everyone over to the port side which was the high side and started evacuating straight away," said Henthorne.
There was more bad news to come. The next significant update Henthorne received was that water levels were above the rubbing strake, which is a band of steel that wraps around the boat.
"The rubbing strake is level with the car deck, and the significance of it is that when the water's above that, it means that you're sinking, you're going to the bottom, because there's no water tight integrity above the car deck," said Henthorne.
"That was the point that told us that we were going to the bottom, that there was no stopping it."
Shortly after that, word reached Henthorne from the engine room that water was gushing through at an alarmingly fast rate.
"The engineer said it was like the Slocan River, it was just flooding through there," he said.
Passengers calm and co-operative
Henthorne said the evacuation of the ship went smoothly with passengers and crew remaining calm and quiet throughout the process.
"There were a couple of older guys [passengers] there helping people into the life-raft, just taking their hand and helping them take the step across," said Henthorne. "They were so well organized, the two of them, I looked at them twice and I almost thought we had a couple more crew members that I didn’t know about."
Once the last of the passengers appeared to be safely off the ship, Henthorne had a fleeting moment of reflection as he stood alone on the ship deck. He spent more time on the Queen of the North than he did in any of his homes. The ship he knew so well was strange and unfamiliar.
"In the stark light of the deck lights I looked inside the ship," says the captain, "And for such a familiar place, it looked, being empty and with the bright fluorescent lights on inside, it just looked very stark and empty and cold."
AUDIO: A mother and her six-year-old were on the sinking ferry
Henthorne said he then ran up and down the passenger decks, doing one last-minute check, pushing each door open and yelling loudly in the hope that no one else was on board. After that, he and his two remaining deckhands climbed the ladder off the ship and into an awaiting Zodiac life vessel.
Watching the massive ship sink
As they floated in life-rafts and lifeboats in the waters of Wright Sound, the passengers and crew of the Queen of the North watched the hulking ship sink into the sea.
"A lot of people said it looked like something out of a movie, and it did, because where else do you get to see a ship sink," said Henthorne.
'It just went straight down, straight as an arrow, disappeared, gone.'
— Henthorne
"It just settled lower and lower in the water and as I was watching it, all I could think about was 'my beautiful ship,'" he said, "Alternately praying for a miracle that would save it and. if that wasn't happening, just hurry up and get it over with."
The lights on board the ship went out deck by deck as the electricity shorted out in the water. Windows exploded from the pressure as the vessel sank lower into the ocean.
"You know that there's no stopping it, there's no power on Earth that's going to stop it from sinking," said Henthorne.
"When it got near the end, it rose up until the bow was vertical, absolutely pointing straight at the sky," the captain remembered. "Then, it just went straight down, straight as an arrow, disappeared, gone."
Missing passengers
Arriving at an accurate count of crew and passengers proved to be an extremely challenging task for the captain. At one point during the evacuation he counted 102, one more than the target number of 101. After a few more tries, he counted 101.
It was a while later, after some passengers had been picked up by coast guard vessels and others sent into nearby Hartley Bay, that Henthorne says he reached a count of 99 — two short of the number of people recorded on board at the start of the trip.
When speaking about Gerald Foisy and Shirley Rosette, the two passengers who have never been found and were ruled by a judge to have died in the sinking of the ship, Henthorne's demeanour becomes even more serious as he searches for an explanation.
"I don't know how they could've disappeared, I simply don’t know," he said.
"One of the things when we were counting people in the boat and I had my megaphone, I said, 'Is anybody missing a travelling companion?’ and nobody spoke up. Nobody noticed that they were not there."
Henthorne pointed out that, to his knowledge, the cabins on the ship were searched and the cafeteria was closed.
"There weren't that many places that they should've been," he said. "They could've been somewhere where they weren't authorized to be, I don’t know."
The captain said no one fell out of a lifeboat or raft after the evacuation and that the possibility exists that they may have disappeared in Hartley Bay. He reiterated that he is simply not sure what happened.
"It's troubling that I can't tell you why or come up with something better about where they are or what might've happened. I just don't know."
First a hero, then fired
Henthorne and the rest of his crew were treated like heroes in the first few days after the sinking. The crew received a letter from then-premier Gordon Campbell congratulating them for their "amazing rescue work" and "selfless courage."
'It was a rough few years. It was one step at a time for us.'
— Henthorne
The captain also received a personal note from BC Ferries CEO David Hahn, thanking him for his professionalism and calm under pressure.
After the incident, Henthorne's plan was to re-group by going home to see his family, but he planned to get back to work fairly quickly. He felt that a short break and some trial sailings with supervisory support would suffice.
But after a month, he and the rest of the crew were informed that no one would be going back to work until the Transportation Safety Board of Canada had finished its investigation.
Ten months after the sinking of the Queen of the North, Henthorne said he received a surprise phone call from a BC Ferries human resources worker. He had been fired. Many members of his crew had been demoted.
"It takes everything out of you. You feel completely lost, completely deflated and you just feel like your legs have been knocked out from underneath you," said Henthorne.
"Especially considering the kudos I had been given. There hadn't been anything negative and the company came out with its own inquiry, there was nothing negative in there, no blame attached, so that was a pretty awful shock."
Henthorne initially fought his dismissal through WorkSafeBC and won by alleging he had been fired for raising safety issues. But, BC Ferries appealed that decision with the Worker's Compensation tribunal and won. It successfully argued that Henthorne failed to accept ultimate responsibility and accountability as an on-duty manager for the workplace accident.
Picking up the pieces
Recovering from being fired by BC Ferries proved difficult for Henthorne. He said the circumstances of his dismissal and a struggling industry meant job opportunities were scarce.
The former captain ended up looking for jobs that were unskilled and outside his profession. When he did get back into his chosen field, it was starting much further down the professional ladder. He said it was difficult to make ends meet.
"It was a rough few years. It was one step at a time for us as a family to go through that and a bit of a roller-coaster ride," Henthorne said.
"There were times when I thought I had it made, then realized I didn't have it made. Trying to sleep at night wasn't easy."
In 2012, more than six years after the Queen of the North disaster, Henthorne was able to find a job that satisfied him professionally. He was hired as a rescue co-ordinator with the Canadian Coast Guard's Rescue Centre in Victoria, a position he still holds today.
Thinking about it every day
Henthorne says he still thinks about the sinking of the Queen of the North on a daily basis. It plays a prominent role in his life and he expects that to continue moving forward.
But despite the painfully vivid memories, he says the experience has allowed him to change his outlook on life.
"I'm a little more appreciative and able to take joy in everything that's in our world," he said, "I go outside and I look at the sky and the stars and the world around me and I just feel fantastic.
"I feel triumphant, I want to celebrate, I feel joyful, in a way that there's more to it than there was before."
Henthorne knows that the incident will haunt him for the rest of his life, so he has changed his focus to dealing with the memories in as positive a manner as possible.
"The incident is going to be part of my life for the rest of my life. I think that's inevitable, there's nothing I can do to change that," Henthorne said.
"My responsibility is how I respond to it. I can sulk about it, I can sit around and fume about it or whatever, that's not going to help," he adds. "It's kind of my job now; I have to make this thing the positive that I want it to be."
The Queen of the North Disaster: The Captain's Story
Publishers Weekly. 264.4 (Jan. 23, 2017): p75.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Listen
Full Text:
The Queen of the North Disaster: The Captain's Story
Colin Henthorne. Harbour (Midpoint, U.S. dish), $16.99 trade paper (212p) ISBN 978-155017-761-9
Henthorne, the captain of the Queen of the North ferry, which sank off the coast of British Columbia in 2006, vividly recounts his experience of the tragedy. The ship struck an underwater ledge, which tore open its bottom, and it sank in just over an hour. Although 99 of the 101 people onboard were saved, two passengers were never found. How such a disaster happened on a route the ferry had traveled thousands of times was the subject of a major investigation. Henthorne recounts the sinking and rescue operation in painstaking and technical detail--the narrowness of the channels, the weather conditions, the lack of visibility in the night and the presence of other vessels in the water, challenges getting the lifeboats in the water, searching the ship for passengers, heroic efforts by crew and passengers during the evacuation, the terrible rumbling sound as all the vehicles onboard rolled off the car decks and plunged into the water, and watching his "beautiful ship" go down. Henthorne was honored for his courage on the night of the sinking but nonetheless, lost his job. This dramatic account will be of interest to those who remember the tragedy as well as readers interested in seafaring. (Mar.)
Queen of the North captain gets his job back
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 2009.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2009 CQ-Roll Call, Inc.
http://www.rollcall.com/about/
Listen
Full Text:
Byline: CBC News
The captain of the ill-fated Queen of the North ferry is getting his job back, two years after the vessel he commanded sank off the northern coast of B.C., killing two people.
Capt. Colin Henthorne was not on the bridge when the ferry failed to make a crucial turn and struck Gil Island, rupturing the hull, causing the ferry to sink with the loss of two passengers' lives on March 22, 2006.
WorkSafeBC, the provincial health and safety agency, has ruled that Henthorne must be back on the job by May 25, BC Ferries spokeswoman Deborah Marshall said Tuesday.
"WorkSafeBC has issued an order that BC Ferries must reinstate the captain for the Queen of the North. BC Ferries does respect the decision of WorkSafeBC and we will be reinstating that individual shortly," said Marshall.
Marshall said privacy concerns prohibit her from giving more details about the reinstatement.
A BC Ferries report on the sinking, issued in March 2007, blamed human error for the accident and singled out three other crew members in charge of navigation and steering at the time for failing to make a required course change.
The captain was off duty and asleep at the time. When he reached the bridge, he previously testified he was told by the fourth officer, "I'm sorry, I was trying to go around a fishing vessel."
The replacement for the sunken Queen of the North, the Northern Expedition, recently arrived from the shipyard in Germany where it was built. It is expected to start regular service between Port Hardy and Prince Rupert in May.
CBC News
Queen of the North a mystery unsolved
Much of what happened the night of the ferry's sinking – and to its two missing passengers – is still unknown , writes James Keller
JAMES KELLER
JUNE 19, 2017
NOVEMBER 11, 2016
After the Queen of the North passenger ferry struck an island and sank off the B.C. coast a decade ago, the ship's crew counted the survivors to confirm all 101 people aboard had made it off safely. When they came up short, they counted again.
The task began in life rafts, which floated together in the darkness as the ferry sank to the bottom of the ocean and the survivors waited for fishing boats and rescue crews to carry them to shore. It continued in the nearby First Nations village of Hartley Bay, whose residents aided in the rescue.
Colin Henthorne, the ship's captain, was sure the evacuation had been a success, that the crew had searched the ship according to plan and no one had been missed. So when they finally settled on a count of 99 passengers and crew, he couldn't believe it.
Colin Henthorne, captain of the Queen of the North passenger ferry and author of The Queen of the North Disaster.
"I was always expecting them to show up. I was always thinking of explanations of where they might have gone; maybe they met someone they knew and were just hanging out. I just figured it was something like that," Mr. Henthorne, now 62, recalled in an interview this week to discuss the launch of his book about that night. "I've gone through in my mind many times of how they could have been missed, and keep finding the same reasons why they should have made it."
The missing passengers, Gerald Foisy and Shirley Rosette, were presumed drowned and a year later declared dead, but even today – after an exhaustive series of investigations, lawsuits and a lengthy criminal trial – nobody knows exactly what happened to them.
Their fate is one of the many mysteries that remain – mysteries that Mr. Henthorne details in a new book, The Queen of the North Disaster, which recounts the sinking from his perspective and the impact it has had on his life, while questioning many aspects of the official explanation for the catastrophe.
Related: Justin Trudeau assures better ship tracking for indigenous groups
Opinion: After the Tofino tragedy, First Nations people deserve formal Coast Guard role
The Queen of the North sank in the early morning of March 22, 2006, after slamming into a remote island during an overnight journey from Prince Rupert, along the province's northern coast, to Vancouver Island.
The theory of investigators and prosecutors was that the ferry missed a scheduled turn because navigating officer Karl Lilgert was not paying attention as the ship sailed in a straight line toward the island.
Mr. Lilgert, who was eventually convicted and imprisoned for criminal negligence, was alone on the bridge with quartermaster Karen Briker, with whom he had had an affair, and the Crown suggested they were either having a lovers' quarrel or, as rumours had swirled for years, having sex.
Mr. Henthorne said he's not convinced a trained and experienced mariner such as Mr. Lilgert would become so distracted that he would completely abandon his duties – and said the rumours of sexual impropriety in a high-traffic area such as a ship's bridge are absurd.
"I thought that was just a mean-spirited accusation," Mr. Henthorne said. "I really find that particular rumour the most damaging of all. Not only do you damage the reputations of those two and try to ruin their lives more than they already were, it distracts from any kind of objectivity."
At Mr. Lilgert's trial, he and Ms. Briker testified that Mr. Lilgert was busy tracking the ferry's course through rough weather while steering clear of a nearby boat.
Mr. Henthorne concedes he does not know what happened and he said it's clear Mr. Lilgert failed to properly navigate the ship. But he said there were enough issues with the ship's equipment – the layout of the bridge, radar that could become unreliable in poor weather, a complicated autopilot system – along with deficiencies with training and safety planning, that there could be other explanations for the disaster.
"I don't think it was definitively proven, even in the court, what happened," he said.
An undated handout photo of the Queen of the North ferry.
An undated handout photo of the Queen of the North ferry.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-B.C. FERRIES
Mr. Henthorne was eventually fired from BC Ferries, the former Crown corporation that operates the province's ferry system. He argues he was fired for raising safety concerns during the investigation and challenged the firing in court. The company insisted he was dismissed in part owing to his attitude during the internal BC Ferries investigation, and a court later rejected Mr. Henthorne's legal challenge.
The company has also said it has fixed many of the safety problems identified in the wake of the Queen of the North disaster.
In the years that followed, Mr. Henthorne struggled to find full-time work in line with his experience as the captain of a major vessel. He worked for a time on the Kootenay Lake ferry in southeastern B.C., and eventually took a job with the Canadian Coast Guard, co-ordinating the type of rescue operations that came to the aid of the Queen of the North.
And while he was successfully treated for post-traumatic stress, he still struggles to understand what happened to Mr. Foisy and Ms. Rosette, the two missing passengers.
"I still hold out hope for some reason," he said. "It's not much of a rational hope any more, but it's the way a lot of people react when they have that uncertainty when someone is missing."
NEWS BUSINESS SPORTS ARTS & LIFE HOMES TRAVELCAREERSOBITSCLASSIFIEDS DRIVING
SIGN INSUBSCRIBE
Queen of the North captain makes case for what caused disaster
Tom SandbornTOM SANDBORN
Published on: December 24, 2016 | Last Updated: December 24, 2016 7:00 AM PST
The Queen of the North Disaster:
The Captain’s Story
By Colin Henthorne
Harbour Publishing
When the BC Ferry Queen of the North left Prince Rupert at 8:00 p.m., March 21 in 2006, it seemed like the beginning of just another routine run south to Port Hardy on the northern tip of Vancouver Island, a cruise through the relatively sheltered waters of B.C.’s fabled Inside Passage.
But in the early hours of March 22, the Queen struck an underwater ridge off of Gil Island, jagged rocks that tore open the hull of the vessel as it surged across the ridge into Wright Sound, where it sank 427 meters to the bottom.
The crew, ably and heroically assisted by the Gitka’a’ata people of nearby Hartley Bay, who responded to radioed Mayday calls by putting out onto dark waters from the village in small boats, and by the Canadian Coast Guard’s Sir Wilfred Laurier, safely evacuated the ship. After some confusion about head counts, rescuers determined that 99 people had been safely taken off the Queen of the North, although 101 had been aboard when the ship left Prince Rupert. Eventually, the missing were identified as Shirley Rosette and Gerald Foisy, who were presumed lost that night.
Karl Lilgert, the ship’s fourth officer, in charge of the bridge that night, was eventually convicted of criminal negligence causing death and sentenced to four years imprisonment. Quartermaster Karen Briker, who was on the bridge with Lilgert, was fired by BC Ferries amidst rumours that she and Lilgert, who had previously had an affair, were either quarreling or having sex during a crucial 14 minute period after the Queen of the North passed Sainty Point (where one of the course changes involved in navigating the Inside Passage was usually implemented) until the craft went aground on the rocks of Gil Island.
Both crew members denied any such misconduct, and Lilgert testified that he thought he had made the necessary course correction, a bit later than when he passed Sainty Point because he was maneuvering to avoid another craft. However, navigational equipment salvaged from the wreck did not support that testimony.
As well as firing Lilgert and Briker, BC Ferries fired the Queen’s captain, Colin Henthorne. Although a series of court actions first reversed his firing and, on appeal, reconfirmed it, Henthorne, who has gone on to serve with the Canadian Coast Guard, believes he and other crew members were treated unfairly by their employer. This book is his apologia and presents his thoughts about what actually happened that night, including his opinion that he was fired as punishment for his outspoken criticism of his employer’s failure to properly equip and organize work on the Queen of the North.
Henthorne dismisses lurid claims about sex on the bridge as unfounded and, in his view, unlikely. It seems to him altogether possible, however (especially given a new and confusing set of instruments and controls that had recently been installed on the bridge) that Lilgert had taken every step but one in a complex series necessary to change course, then became distracted by rough sea, winds and the other craft he was trying to avoid, and did not take the final, implementation step. In the captain’s account, there was human error involved, but not criminal negligence.
The Queen of the North Disaster is a tightly reasoned and informative account from an eyewitness to a set of events that still remains surrounded by unanswered questions. Henthorne set out to make the strongest case possible that he and his crew were hung out to dry by a BC Ferries management team unwilling to examine its role in the disaster.
Readers will have to decide for themselves if they are convinced, but this book provides the resources to support an informed judgment about one of our province’s most serious maritime disasters. This book is recommended reading for anyone who cares about maritime safety, B.C. history or workers’ rights.
Tom Sandborn lives and writes in Vancouver. He welcomes feedback and story tips at tos65@telus.net.