JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — After two weeks of testimony, the Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation has wrapped up round 2 of the hearings into the sinking of El Faro with 33 lives on board.
Many family members have been present at the hearings and those who couldn’t make it have been watching from home.
On Friday many showed their support for each other by wearing matching shirts and holding onto a handmade wooden anchor with the names of every crew member.
The wooden anchors were made by Holly Wells, the sister of Howard Schoenly who was on board El Faro.
“It was a comfort thing for me, I thought about each one of them as I was making each one,” said Wells.
And now it’s helping the other families too.
Wells made one for each family, as well as the ship, and the union halls and handed them out on the final day of the hearings.
“We're all tied together now we can't just break apart and be separate families,” said Wells.
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This session proved to be the most technical with a lot of testimony focusing on stability calculation procedures.
One of the most telling revelations came on the third day of the hearings when we learned El Faro’s captain received outdated storm track information on Hurricane Joaquin because of an anomaly with the weather routing system aboard.
The board still has a lot of evidence to sort through from now to the next hearing but there’s one thing families hope comes out of this.
“More safety conditions for the guys out there,” said Claudia Schultz, wife of crew member Steven Schultz.
Following testimony from a TOTE executive yesterday that quote “the proof is in the pudding” when it comes to the company’s record, the NTSB’s lead investigator Tom Roth-Roffy took the opportunity Friday to apologize to TOTE for the way he phrased the question and reiterated the cause of the sinking is still under investigation.