Nearly two years after the mast of an historic excursion vessel splintered and fell onto the deck, killing a woman aboard the schooner Grace Bailey off the Maine coast, the chastened Coast Guard claims to have no clue how it happened.
The guard, distracted by bureaucratic feuding, is refusing to release any information about the 2023 boating tragedy that occurred off the coast of Rockland.
The agency’s Biden appointees are on a work slowdown designed to embarrass Trump because he recently fired their DEI-obsessed commander.
Caught up in the maelstrom is the family of Emily Mecklenburg, 40, a Rockport physician aboard the boat when the main mast snapped, striking and killing her.
The investigation is hung up in back-and-forth, tit-for-tat finger-pointing between the Biden and Trump administrations.
After taking office, President Donald Trump ousted Adm. Linda Fagan for “excessive focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion policies” that led to a shortage of qualified personnel.
Fagan, the first woman in the Coast Guard to receive four stars, served as vice commandant before the Biden administration – intent on expanding voter rolls by promoting so-called “diversity” – tapped her to lead the service.
Biden critics believe a DEI-focused command delayed finding out who is responsible for Mecklenburg’s death.
The victim’s frustrated father, Peter Mecklenburg, said he’s filing a Freedom Of Information request, “many of them, in fact,” to force the agency to defend the lollygagged investigation.
He’s referring all questions to Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. William Wallen, who along with other agency officials is refusing to comment.
Mecklenburg said he’s heard nothing from Wallen on the status of the probe into his daughter’s death.
The Maine Wire, meanwhile, has filed its own Freedom Of Information inquiry seeking answers into the mast’s catastrophic failure, which occurred while the schooner was returning from a four-day cruise.
The boat carrying Emily Mecklenburg was a mile east of Rockland harbor when the main mast cracked, splintered and slammed onto the deck, mortally wounding her.
In the wake of the accident, the boat’s operators said they had no idea why the mast broke.
“The safety of our guests is our biggest priority,” the vessel’s captain, Sam Sikkema, said in a post-accident statement. “Most importantly, we are beyond heartbroken that we lost a dear friend.”
Coast Guard Capt. Amy Florentino, commander of Coast Guard Sector Northern New England, said following the mishap the agency was “committed to conducting a thorough investigation aimed at identifying factors that will prevent an accident like this from reoccurring.”
Yet, 18 months later, Coast Guard officials – caught in the political tug of war between Trump and Biden – won’t respond to questions about the probe. They continue to ignore telephonic and emailed requests from The Maine Wire seeking information.
The Grace Bailey – already booking passengers for the upcoming sailing season – was involved in three previous accidents when it was under different ownership.
The ill-fated schooner on which Emily Mecklenburg was a passenger is part of the state’s so-called windjammer fleet, a collection of schooners, or multiple-masted sailing vessels, that take people on excursions up and down the coast.
Mecklenburg, among 33 passengers on the boat at the time, completed a medical residency at Maine Medical Center in Portland after graduating from the University of Iowa Medical School in 2013.
She then began practicing internal medicine at Pen-Bay Medical Center in Rockport.
