USCG: Rotten Wood, Poor Inspection Caused Historic Maine Schooner Demasting

The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) has released a critical report on the demasting of a historic schooner, blaming the catastrophic incident on rotten wood that had gone unnoticed for years due to poor inspections.

About three years after the mainmast of the 144-year-old schooner Grace Baileybroke during a routine voyage, causing the death of one passenger and leaving five others injured, a detailed investigation has established that the structural integrity of the mainmast had long been compromised by rot.

Although the vessel underwent numerous inspections, both by the USCG and third-party inspectors, the inspections lacked depth, resulting in a failure to detect deterioration of the mainmast.

Built in 1882, Grace Bailey is a 118-foot schooner operating excursions in Maine. The vessel experienced the catastrophic demasting during a four-day excursion around Penobscot Bay in Maine on October 9, 2023. On the day of the incident, the schooner had 33 people on board, including 26 passengers and seven crew members. The vessel that was owned by the Grace Bailey Navigation Company had been operating cruises on the Maine coast since the 1990s.

In its 95-page report, the USCG Office of Investigations and Casualty Analysis gives a detailed account of the incident from the moment the Grace Bailey set out for the excursion. While the first three days were uneventful, the situation took a tragic twist on Monday, October 9, when she arrived at Penobscot Bay at approximately 8:30 am.

Things started to unfold about an hour later when a single passenger standing port side abreast of the mainmast heard a noise from aloft but dismissed the noise as normal for a wooden vessel and did not discuss the sounds with any other passenger or crewmember. At 10:11 am, another passenger heard a noise aloft that was later described as a “rope being stretched to its limit.” The passenger visually scanned the sails and rigging, determining that everything seemed normal.

Just a minute later, a third noise reported from aloft was recognized by multiple passengers and crewmembers, prompting the captain and mate to scan the rig. They observed the mainmast bending at a point approximately 75 percent up the mast. Although the captain quickly ordered everyone to get down, it was too late because at that point the mainmast collapsed, twisting and falling to starboard.

Five passengers, including the deceased Dr. Emily Mecklenburg, age 40, were struck and injured by the falling rigging. Another passenger fell down a ladderway into the vessel's galley while rolling out of the path of falling rigging, resulting in injury.

In its investigation, the USCG established that since she began offering cruise services, the Grace Bailey had a history of bending the rules when it came to her mast installation and material specifications.

A case in point was in July 1990, during the final stages of an extensive drydock and rebuild project, the schooner’s previous owner identified rot in the lower portion of the foremast and went ahead to perform repairs without prior notification to and oversight by the Coast Guard. Despite not being alerted, the Coast Guard undertook an inspection that revealed cosmetic deterioration of the repair but no signs of rot and allowed the vessel to continue operating.

Another repair, still because of rot, was carried out in 2014 on the vessel’s mainmast and foremast, with the works being carried out by local shipwrights and overseen by Coast Guard inspectors.

Over the period between 2014, when the masts were unstepped, to 2023, the Grace Bailey underwent a total of 18 inspections, with eight including data entries reflecting completion of a mast inspection. In one of the inspections in 2022, just before Grace Bailey Navigation Company purchased the vessel, rot was detected on the starboard side of the foremast under the boom saddle, with repairs being carried out the following year.

The USCG investigation team was able to identify a series of factors that caused the demasting, key of which was severe internal rot of the mainmast due to fungal growth. The rot significantly weakened the structural integrity of the mast, making it prone to failure under stress, they concluded.

Notably, Grace Bailey’s Douglas fir masts had almost all sapwood removed during lathing, and the remaining sapwood at the upper portion of the mast had been removed during final shaping. And while a properly treated sapwood shell is essential for preventing decay in grown Douglas fir masts, the owner and operator of the schooner had failed to implement effective preservative treatment.

“Grace Bailey’s masts did not undergo anti-fungal treatment, leaving heartwood unprotected from fungal colonization,” states the report, adding that checks, ideally limited to a treated sapwood shell, penetrated unprotected heartwood, allowing continual moisture intrusion into the mast interior.

The report also criticizes the inspection methods on the schooner, concluding that they lacked depth due to safety constraints. They report that they primarily relied on visual inspections from deck level. Alternative methods like lift cranes were not used.

Following the release of the report, the USCG has issued nine recommendations to prevent mast collapses in the future. Among them is broad collaboration between the agency and the sailing industry to identify wooden mast material characteristics and conditions that can precede, influence, or contribute to fungal decay.

The Grace Bailey was restored and certified by the USCG. She has returned to the seas for her summer cruises.