Despite Court Ruling Against Navy, Many Boaters Say Anaheim Bay Safe

As Bob Cannon pushed his motorboat down the Huntington Harbour Yacht Club launch, he dismissed a federal judge’s condemnation of U.S. Navy safety measures in nearby Anaheim Bay.

About the worst thing he’s seen happen in 25 years of boating in the bay “is that your engine fails,” Cannon said. “You can’t legislate intelligence.”

In the wake of last week’s ruling that the Navy has for decades ignored the safety of pleasure boaters and shares responsibility for a grisly 1984 nighttime speedboat crash that killed five people and injured four others, many Anaheim Bay boaters and officials said the accident was an anomaly.

Moreover, they said, any suggestion to cut off the bay to all boats except those licensed by the Navy was impractical.

“I don’t see how it could happen,” said Frank Hardy, 63, dock master at the Sunset Aquatic Marina. “I just don’t see it. There’s too many people who launch boats on weekends. There’s thousands of boats on the bay.”

“I’ve lived here and have been a boater for 17 years,” Orange County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder said. “It’s the only opening to the sea that boaters have into Huntington Harbour, and the Navy has always tried to be good neighbors. All these years, and that harbor has had no other significant accident.”

Navy officials declined to comment on the case, saying the matter was still under litigation.

U.S. District Judge James M. Ideman ruled Thursday that the government is potentially liable for half of more than $20 million in damages being sought by relatives of the five people killed, as well as the survivors, including Virl H. Earles, a 32-year-old construction worker from Westminster who was piloting the speedboat the morning of Oct. 28, 1984.

The five killed were Earles’ best friend, Anthony Sutton, 27, Ronald Myers, 22, and John Bakos, 22, all of Seal Beach; Kathy Weaver, 24, of Laguna Beach, and Patricia Hulings, 20, of Downey. Earles and Stephen Brennan, then 24, of Westminster, were critically injured in the 3:15 a.m. crash. Carol Kemble, then 25, of Laguna Beach, and Ernest Chavez, then 24, of Bakersfield, were treated for minor injuries.

Brennan, Kemble and Chavez all testified later that they did not think Earles was driving recklessly.

But in 1986, after one mistrial, Earles was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to three years in prison but is free while his appeal is pending.

In their lawsuit, plaintiffs had claimed that the Navy was partly responsible for the crash off Seal Beach, arguing that it had not properly maintained or policed the waters of Anaheim Bay, over which it has authority.

Besides Earles, plaintiffs in the case include Bakos’ mother, Terez Ujj; Weaver’s parents, Robert Weaver and Estelle Schmidt; Sutton’s mother, Marlene Sutton; Myers’ mother, Marie Katz, and Hulings’ mother, Roberta Hulings.

Earles has admitted driving up to five times the speed limit of 5 m.p.h. in the bay when his boat hit an unlighted mooring buoy. He also was traveling without lights on the boat. A test showed that he had a blood alcohol content of slightly more than .10%, the legal maximum in California to be presumed drunk.

And Judge Ideman did find that Earles had been “extremely negligent,” and that he was “drunk, or at least under the influence of alcohol.” But, he said, the Navy--by opening the bay to pleasure boaters--must safeguard against unskilled and dangerous boating.

Safety Measures

In his ruling, the judge pointed out several safety measures the Navy should have taken, including lighting the buoy that Earles rammed. He also found the Navy in violation of its own regulation requiring the licensing of all boaters using the bay. The regulation stems from the declaration of Anaheim Bay as a danger zone because of its military function serving the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station, a major West Coast munitions supply point.

Even so, the idea of licensing all boaters on the bay met with little support along the slips and moorings of Anaheim Bay and the adjacent Huntington Harbour.

Licensing boaters “wouldn’t do anything” for a drunk person, said Victor Pesavento, who added that he has been sailing Anaheim Bay in his 25-foot Bayliner since 1969.

Boaters and dock masters alike said they didn’t see how the Navy would be able to license and regulate the pleasure boaters who make an estimated 40,000 crossings of the bay each year, according to testimony in the case.

Ideman has scheduled further proceedings in April to determine how much should be awarded in damages against the Navy.

Last week, a former security guard at the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station testified that he had recommended lighting the buoys a year before the accident but that Navy officials had said there was no need. The guard made the suggestion because some boaters, confused by lights around the bay after dark, actually ran up on the beach.

After Ideman announced his ruling, Marlene Sutton of Irvine wept openly.

“I just think it will maybe be the key to keep them (the Navy) from letting it happen to anybody else,” Sutton said. “I wouldn’t want any other mother to go through this.”

But, some boaters say, unless someone is speeding, the Navy’s buoys pose little hazard.

“At 5 miles an hour, I can smash into anything out there and it wouldn’t even hurt my boat,” said Bill Reese, who has plied the area’s waters for 17 years. “You’d just hear a thud.”

No Requirements

But Dana Denton, the Long Beach attorney representing Earles and the other plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit, said testimony showed that “there was zero requirement for licensing of boats or educational requirements.” That is evidence, he said, that the Navy showed no concern for the safety of private craft.

“The sad part is that these kids had to die for people to think about safety,” Denton said, adding that the eight buoys in the bay cost $60,000 apiece and lighting each would have cost only another $1,000.

While many boaters were not convinced a hazard indeed existed in Anaheim Bay, several people did say they would like to see the buoys lighted.

Alex Koochek, 54, harbor master for the Huntington Harbour Bay Club Marina, said it can be difficult entering the harbor at night. “Sometimes you can hardly see where to go,” he said.

Fisherman Bob Mellema, who frequently takes his 18-foot Boston Whaler out at night, would also like to have the buoys lighted.

Aboard his bobbing boat, Mellema said, “We’ve gotten lost down there several times because it was not properly lit.”