Seas and wind not too bad. Apparently seaworthy vessel. Life raft floating and in usable condition. Not so fast that they were unable to make a distress call. And quite young.

We will probably never know, but what a tragedy for these young men and their families.

70' ship and all they found of it was a "debris field"? Almost sounds like an explosion.

A boat will come apart really quickly once it gets a hole in the hull.

I suppose more info will come out once they start picking up the debris. There are a lot of whales in the area as well, so I wonder about that. They have been known to attack boats, particularly if the boats come around them when they are giving birth.

Rivers and lakes here.

So could the water alone be enough to break up a vessel that large if it weren't a sea critter?

A lot of the container ships will lose whole shipping containers overboard which can float just below the surface. They could cut a nasty hole in just about anything but a large ship.
Water alone, or a sea critter wouldn't have done that to a 70' vessel.
The other possibility is just overloading or other stability problems or just poor maintenance, although that seems to be less of a problem in the Northwest as the fishing industry is more stable there, but you should see some of the boats that operate on the Gulf of Mexico.

I do remember hearing something about ocean 'trash' just below the surface and the concerns after last year's 9.0 and tsunami (anniversary being today, ironically). It caught my attention because I just assumed things washed out to sea would just sink, but the concern was them being just below the surface and what dangers that could pose for trans-pacific vessels.

Thanks for jogging my memory on that little physics lesson.

The boat sank. There's no reason to believe that it didn't sink in one piece. The "debris" is fuel cans, nets and the like.

Propane has essentially replaced CNG in the US and is heavier than air....

once it collects in the bilge a spark would ignite a catastrophic explosion

The rules regarding the storage and use of propane are pretty strict. Insurance companies require shut off systems and storage in a way that will not permit propane to get into the bilge.

But still, not foolproof by any means.

but on that distress call, is that something that has to be initiated, or can it be auto triggered by the ship breaking up?

the link in a post below says it was an EPIRB. An EPIRB will automatically go off if it is submerged and sends out a signal. However, the response to these is generally abysmal because there are so many false alarms.

When the Coast Guard picks up the signal, they generally put out an alert to anyone monitoring the VHF radio that they have picked up a signal and boaters should be on the lookout. They usually don't even have a general location.

So it is possible that an event occurred in which the crew perished immediately, but the EPIRB went off.

Does that make sense?

In the offchance that there were survivors (at least originally) that couldn't get to the radio to send the distress call themselves.

Triggered when in contact with water.

"A million things can go wrong at sea. Only one has to."

One of his own sailboats was partially demasted off the coast of Santa Cruz about 20 years ago. One minute he's sailing with two friends under clear skies and calm seas, and a minute later he's hauling himself back onto his partially capsized boat. They were saved from sinking only by pure luck...his deck hatches had all been closed, and both he and one of his friends were carrying knives, which allowed them to quickly cut away the rigging and sail that was acting like an anchor. One random rogue wave, hitting at just the right angle, as the boat was still rolled port from the previous wave, was all it took to end their day. He later figured out that if the boat had been just a few more degrees upright, they wouldn't have had any damage at all. And if they'd been a few more degrees to port, the boat probably would have just capsized and sunk.

Life at sea can be pretty damned random.

The winds and waves around Santa Cruz can be vicious and come up really quickly.

The two worst things that have happened to me are broaching (which sounds like what happened to your father) and being hit by a water spout. Sailboats do much better under these conditions and I would not have wanted to be in a power boat for either one.

Glad your father got out of trouble. Sounds like he did the right things, all right.

I am blessed with a wonderful captain. We've had some close calls, but he has always calmly taken us through them.

The poor families.

That's a rather formidable and a seaworthy Length.
Whatever happened, it was nasty. Rogue wave, bad thru-hull fitting, broach in a trough.
Who knows?

Sixty knot winds and 30 foot seas. Borderline hurricane conditions. They shouldn't have been out there.

A tanker or large freighter would plow a 70' ship under pretty effortlessly, I'd guess?

You can generally see them miles away and a boat like this should have some good motor power. If they lost power for some reason, they can radio the ship who could divert course with enough notice.

When the waves turn the minutes to hours?

They might have split up or they might have capsized;
May have broke deep and took water.
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

... and it wasn't all blue skies and FAC (CG acronym - flat-ass calm), I'm here to tell ya...

epitomized by The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald. I suppose you must have saved lives while subjecting your own to peril. I know that feeling of fear and reward; it has given me an excuse for existing when there were times I could think of no other.

Thank you for your brave service.

Oh hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea! Amen.

Not a whale or a freighter.

http://www.shipwrecklog.com/log/2012/03/lady-cecelia/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=lady-cecelia

They are automated and will go off if the device is submerged. However, they are very inefficient and do not trigger immediate response from the Coast Guard.

This boat should have been able to handle 12 foot seas pretty easily. Wind gusts to 75 are pretty high, though, but that area is rough.

on board who worked with the same company as my husband. It was his first assignment. This makes me sick to my stomach on so many levels. Those poor men, their parents, and their children. It also makes me fear letting my husband go back out to sea.