Fisherman laments sunken vessel, starts anew with Lucky Lady

This was published in the Kodiak Daily Mirror today.  It’s another fine example of the spooky mysteries out at sea… It’s not one of the Deadliest Catch fishing vessels or crew, but it is someone who lost his boat to the sea earlier this year and rebounded back…

Fisherman Matt Shadle said losing a boat is not as bad as losing a child, but it comes in a close second.

Shadle owned the fishing vessel Risky Business for 15 years. It was believed to have sunk after extreme weather forced the crew to abandon ship 69 miles east of Kodiak, in March of this year. The crew was rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard.

He remembers close calls on the Risky Business, but said it never lost a soul.

However, since that unfortunate day in March, Shadle has received numerous reports — even one from the Coast Guard — that the boat was sighted still afloat, but upside down in the ocean. He has not seen it himself, but worries it might be a navigational hazard out there somewhere.

“People still come up to me — like this morning — and ask, ‘Is it true the Risky is still afloat?’” Shadle said. “I wish everybody would just recognize the Risky will be gone and I guess there will always be this ghost of the Risky Business still floating out there.”

It is hard for him to hear reports of the boat sightings.

“It’s almost as if you had lost a loved one and you didn’t know if they were lost or not,” he said, likening the situation to those missing in action in Vietnam.

He recently purchased another boat, the F/V Lucky Lady, “because of its beam and reputation.”

It was built in 1968 by longtime Kodiak resident Tubby Olsen.

“The innovative ideas that he put into that boat and what he did, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Shadle said. “The steel is impeccable.”

Shadle and his crew will take the boat on one halibut trip to see how it responds, then paint it back to its original color.

“I love to take something and turn it into something pretty,” he said.

By DEANNA COOPER

Mirror Writer

These are pictures from the rescue of the F/V Risky Business crew earlier this year.  It’s nice to see that a lost vessel doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the end of fishing for some.