Pilot’s Version of Spill Disclosed : Disaster: Mooring master scoffs at suggestions that he should have sent a skiff ahead of oil tanker to take depth soundings.

Seeing no reason to question nautical charts or do his own depth readings, the pilot of the American Trader has told state lawyers that he expected no problems the day the oil tanker struck its anchor and spilled 394,000 gallons of crude, officials said Monday.

In a brief interview with The Times, Capt. John E. Keon declined to comment on specifics of his statement to attorneys for the State Lands Commission. But he bristled at suggestions by some legal and shipping experts--including lawyers who have filed spill-related lawsuits--that he should have sent a skiff in front of the tanker to measure the depth before mooring because the charts were 15 years old.

“This was not Columbus discovering the West Indies,” Keon, a resident of San Jacinto, said. “These waters have been charted and sailed in for years. If any master has doubts about depth, he wouldn’t proceed at all until a complete bottom scan was done.”

Keon’s account of what happened aboard the American Trader on Feb. 7 was disclosed for the first time Monday by lawyers for the Lands Commission, which supervises leases of state property, including those for 16 offshore tanker terminals such as the one in question 1.3 miles off Huntington Beach.

According to state lawyers, Keon, 41, said the navigation charts--the accuracy of which has been questioned by the Coast Guard--were the best available and that his five years of experience in using the terminal told him that the mooring attempt would be no different from the 50 to 70 moorings he had completed without incident at the berth.

Keon also said he had no reports of problems at the mooring and that he did not use a Fathometer because it shows only the depth directly under the keel and hence is not an adequate warning device.

Keon told the lawyers, however, that the American Trader’s captain, A.R. (Robert) La Ware, wanted for some reason to abort the mooring attempt shortly before crewmen spotted oil leaking from the bow. La Ware was not available for comment Monday.

Rick Ludlow, a senior staff council for the agency, said he interviewed Keon for two hours last Thursday at the commission’s Long Beach office as part of an inquiry into the oil spill and the general safety of those moorings under state authority.

“There was nothing in the interview to indicate that Keon did anything beyond what he was supposed to do,” Ludlow said. “This is not a conclusion, but it appears that he was using good seamanship at the time of the spill.”

The 811-foot American Trader, owned by American Trading Transportation Co. in New York, struck its port anchor and punched two holes in a forward storage compartment while trying to deliver 300,000 barrels of crude at the Golden West refinery mooring.

Ensuing investigations by the Coast Guard and a host of governmental agencies have focused on the conduct of the crew, the accuracy of navigation charts possibly made obsolete by shifting sand, and whether large tankers should use the mooring.

The charted depth of the Huntington Beach terminal is at least 51 feet, but the area was last surveyed by chart makers more than 15 years ago.

Officials say the American Trader approached the mooring after the lowest tide of the month and was drawing 43 feet of water when it hit its 12 1/2-foot-tall, 6-foot-wide anchor as it stood upright on the bottom. Ships with drafts greater than 43 feet are not allowed to use the mooring for safety reasons.

According to commission lawyers, Keon said he believed he had from 8 feet to 13 feet of water under the ship’s keel, an acceptable safety margin, as he dropped the anchors and prepared to coax the ship into a 700-foot-wide, U-shaped cluster of seven buoys.

Keon, who was supervised by La Ware, said that he had already dropped the port and starboard anchors in the proper locations when La Ware indicated that he did not like the approach and wanted to abort.

Commission lawyers said Keon then ordered the starboard anchor hoisted, and as the crew responded to the command, they saw oil bubbling to the water’s surface.

“The captain told him that the situation didn’t feel right and that he wanted to stop the mooring and make a decision whether to try again,” Ludlow said. “It appears they made a proper decision to leave.”

Ludlow said he did not know exactly why La Ware wanted to stop the mooring. He also could not explain the apparently contradictory statements of an anchorman who recalled that only the port anchor was dropped before the oil spill was noticed.

Coast Guard officials say they had never been alerted by mariners to any depth problems at the Golden West terminal until the spill. In addition, State Lands Commission officials say that 31 tankers--at least one larger than the American Trader--used the offshore mooring without incident from November, 1988, to November, 1989.

Despite the record, Howard Sacks, an attorney for gill-net fishermen whose business has been hurt by the spill, and Navy Lt. John Aggas, an instructor at the California Maritime Academy in Vallejo, have said that captains and mooring masters would be foolish to rely solely on navigation charts.

Sacks, an admiralty lawyer, further contended that prudent masters should keep track of depths around a mooring and from time to time send their mates out in a boat to do soundings.

“The suggestion that in 1990 that we put the second officer in a skiff to take readings is absolute idiocy,” Keon replied. “This idea of proceeding slowly into waters if there was a doubt about the depth would be negligence, and anyone doing that would not be--as we say in the profession--packing a full sea bag.”

Within the maritime industry, pilots and captains said they would not proceed into an area where there were doubts about the depth. If there were, they said, they would have the owner of the terminal do a depth survey, and not have such a survey performed by a second mate in a skiff.

“They used to do that in the 1500s when they didn’t have charts,” said Capt. Kenneth M. Graham, a 20-year pilot who works for Jacobsen’s Pilot Service in Long Beach. “I don’t think anyone in the profession feels that soundings from a skiff should be done. Anyway, that is a frequently used terminal. We are not exploring new ground there.”

Cleanup PROCEEDS: Oily residue in wetlands could do only minimal damage, biologists say. B5