Coast Guard tests parasail gear after fatal Ocean Isle accident
Inaugural work result of fatal 2009 accident off Ocean Isle
By Steve Jones - sjones@thesunnews.com E-Mail

ASH, N.C. -- The U.S. Coast Guard has done its first-ever testing of parasail equipment as part of its investigation into an accident off Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., late last summer that killed two women.

The Coast Guard hired the National Transportation Safety Board's Office of Marine Safety, and Materials Laboratory to test equipment from the boat winch to the parasail yoke, said Cmdr. Jerry Barnes, chief of Marine Inspections and Investigations for the 5th District Coast Guard Headquarters in Portsmouth, Va., who is in charge of the investigation.

Lorrie Shoup of Granby, Colo., and Cynthia Woodcock of Kernersville, N.C., died in the Aug. 28 accident when they were caught aloft as a fast-moving storm front struck the coast. The stress on the parasail from the wind apparently caused the tow line connecting the two women to the parasail boat to snap. The women were flipped upside down while still harnessed to the parasail, and the wind drove them downward and repeatedly slammed them into wave tops generated by the storm, according to eyewitness testimony from aformal Coast Guard hearing held in late September.

Talk about this story on Facebook At one point during the rescue attempt, the witnesses said the parasail lines became caught in the boat rigging, and the two women dangled upside down and motionless before terrified passengers, including Woodcock's aunt and four children of a passenger from New Jersey.

The N.C. Medical Examiners Office ruled that Shoup, 54, and Woodcock, 60, died of blunt trauma.

Barnes said the Coast Guard's Feb. 17 tests in Bradenton, Fla., were designed to determine the amount of wind load that parasail equipment can withstand.

It was impossible to re-enact the exact conditions encountered off Ocean Isle Beach that day, but the test boat's changing speed simulated the effect of increasing wind, and barrels of water duplicated the weight of the two women, Barnes said. The monitors aboard the boat showed the real-time effect of changing wind conditions on the equipment.

Additionally, Barnes said that the actual line used the day of the accident and an identical-width, new tow line were subjected to laboratory testing. He could not say what, if any, differences were found in those tests.

"I applaud the Coast Guard for any step in getting involved," said Mark McCulloh, founder of the Parasail Safety Council and inventor of the parasail winch. McCulloh said he has been retained as a potential witness in one of the lawsuits filed as a result of the accident and would not talk about the specifics of the tragedy.

Barnes did not want to put a timeline on completion of the report as he said that could raise expectations that might not be met. He said his office is waiting for a report on the test results that will be incorporated into the overall investigation report and will include safety recommendations. That report will be forwarded to the 5th District admiral who will review it and endorse it or possibly make changes. It will then be sent to the office of the commandant of the Coast Guard in Washington, D.C., where it will again be reviewed and possibly edited again.

Barnes said that the report will be sent to the victims' families first and released to the public days later.

He said the process will take months.

"We're anxious to see the results and gain access to those materials ourselves so we can form our own opinions through expert analysis," said Joel Rhine, a Wilmington, N.C., attorney representing Woodcock's widower in a civil lawsuit that stemmed from the accident.

Rhine's lawsuit and another from Shoup's widower have been filed in N.C. state court and are awaiting a federal court ruling that damages be exempted from U.S. Admiralty Law that would limit liability to the value of the tow boat. Rhine said a motion to exempt the limitation is currently under consideration by U.S. District Court Judge James Fox. He said he expects that a ruling will be issued before the Coast Guard investigation report is made public.

Barnes said the investigation also will include an examination of the actions of the parasail company's president, boat captain and the sole crewmember before, during and after the incident.

The National Weather Service in Wilmington, N.C., broadcast several small-craft warnings for the southeastern North Carolina coast that day, which were either ignored or not heard by company representatives. A special weather warning of storms moving quickly through Brunswick County was broadcast at 1 p.m., about the time the parasail boat left the dock on the Intracoastal Waterway side of Ocean Isle Beach.

Barrett McMullan, the company's president, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Barnes said the Coast Guard decided to conduct a formal hearing and the equipment tests because there were two fatalities in the accident and because of the number of parasail operators within its jurisdiction, which stretches from North Carolina to New Jersey.

He said that if the Coast Guard formally recommends parasail safety regulations, which would be a first in the industry, there will be a public comment period before they are finalized.

At least some parasail companies along the Grand Strand have a nonregulatory agreement for safety guidelines with the 7th District Coast Guard in Charleston. Some have said they ceased operations hours prior to the Ocean Isle Beach tragedy because of the worsening weather.

McCulloh said that any regulations need to include a definition of the weather conditions in which parasail companies may or may not operate. If a weather regulation was ignored, he said, people could be jailed.

"It would put so much pressure on a person who would go outside the boundaries, he wouldn't do it," McCulloh said. "His freedom is at stake."

Contact STEVE JONES at 910-754-9855