Unalaska, AK – The Marine Board of Investigations reconvened Wednesday for an additional day of testimony in Seattle about the sinking of the Katmai. Seven of the eleven crew members died when the catcher/processor went down on October 22 in Amchitka Pass, 100 miles west of Adak. Coast Guard public affairs officer Shawn Eggert attended the hearings. He said much of the testimony from the boat's owners and a former crew member focused on the history of the boat and the repairs that were done on it. The owners converted the Katmai from a shrimp boat to a cod boat before moving it from Oregon to western Alaska.

"There was some talk about welding that had been done in the lazarrete area," Eggert said. "They brought up a crack that had been noticed and some welding that have been done to try and cover that up or to fix that. That was really the focus of what they were looking into."

It was unclear if the crack had ever been completely fixed. Previous testimony indicated the ship might have gone down because flooding in the lazarette affected the steering. The board also spoke with the captains of the F/V Courageous and the F/V Patricia Lee, the two Good Samaritan vessels that helped with the rescue. Both said the weather that day was horrible.

During the rescue, the crew of the Courageous retrieved a life raft that was deployed from the Katmai but never inflated. The board examined the conditions of the raft.

"When the board reconvenes they will be inflating the raft and actually putting it in the water to see if they spot any kind of irregularities or any sort of damages to the raft itself to see if perhaps there was any kind of deficiencies to the raft to see if it made it unsuitable as a lifesaving device," Eggert said.

The Board has not yet set a date for reconvening the hearing nor is there an estimate for when the report will be released.