Legacy of Coast Guard’s original Storis shared by former crew during film screening before new namesake is commissioned
- Mark Sabbatini
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 2 hours ago
Older ship’s ruggedness and versatility during its 64 years of service fulfilled a mission different than the current ship will likely see, former captain says
By Mark Sabbatini
Juneau Independent
John Alan "Al" Doty was captain of the U.S. Coast Guard’s original Storis during one of Alaska’s most dramatic search-and-rescues in recorded history — literally so, since the retrieval of six crew from the swamped Alaskan Monarch in icy high seas in 1990 was captured on film.
On Saturday, a day before the commissioning of a new Storis in Juneau, he said there are huge differences between the original ship with its 64 years of service and the current 13-year-old repurposed icebreaker originally built to support an oil company’s exploration work.
"I know that because of its construction and characteristics it's going to be a very different ship mission-wise from (the original) Storis," he said. "Storis at a 14-foot draft could go a lot of places that a ship with a 28-foot (draft) can’t. So I think (the newer ship) is correctly identified as a polar breaker. It's built for breaking ice."
"So its name might be Storis, but it's not going to be the same sort of mission-oriented ship that the old Storis was. We didn’t (avoid) anything that we were asked to do and we were capable of getting a lot of places that other ships couldn't get."
Doty was among about 75 people at a screening of the documentary "STORIS: The Galloping Ghost of the Alaskan Coast" in a packed lecture hall room at the Alaska State Library, Archives and Museum on Saturday afternoon. The 2015 film by Damon Stuebner, an archivist at the state library, details the original Storis’ unprecedented length of Coast Guard service throughout Alaska with duties ranging from rescues to delivering mail to remote communities.
The original Storis was a 230-foot-long light icebreaker commissioned in 1942 to assist with World War II operations. It was the first U.S.-registered vessel to navigate the Northwest Passage and circumnavigate the North American continent.
The ship’s high-profile service duties also included the 9.2 magnitude earthquake in Anchorage in 1964 and the rescue of Alaskan Monarch’s crew off Saint Paul Island, with two of them retrieved from the sea after being washed overboard by an enormous wave.
Doty, speaking to the rest of the audience after Saturday’s screening, said one of his major memories of serving on the original Storis was the range of duties involved beyond the headline-grabbing rescues and enforcement actions.
"Lots of that work was really nuts and bolts — watching a boat, putting a boarding party on a ship maybe in not-very-nice sea conditions, counting fish, checking documents, doing safety checks," he said. "So in addition to the dramatic things that happened to Storis and to those of us in Storis, a lot of that effort was in relatively less dramatic, but nevertheless important areas. I’m sure that's true of most Coast Guard ships and most Coast Guard missionaries, but certainly Storis was, for me, the most rewarding tour I had — and I had a bunch of good tours."
The original Storis was stationed in Juneau from 1948 to 1957, at the onset of the ship’s post-war duties that ranged from dramatic to mundane. Doty said the ship’s versatility and ruggedness were remarkable among the Coast Guard’s fleet.
"First of all, for every ship I went to I figured if I took care of the ship then the ship would take care of me and the crew," he said. "So that was also a theme throughout my time in Storis and I'm sure virtually every other commanding officer felt the same way. The ship was built hell-for-stout, as I was told once upon a time, and we abused her and she brought us back every time."
"You saw her adapted physically, adapted materiality, adapted for various missions. The bottom line was she sailed in pretty rough northern climes through most of her career, she took it without wincing."
The Storis was decommissioned on Feb. 12, 2007, with then-Rear Adm. Arthur Brooks telling those assembled the ship "literally carved a path, blazed the trail and marked the waterways that ensured the safe transit of every ship that followed. It’s obvious; this tough old ship has the tenacity and determination — the very heart and soul — of those who built her, those members of the greatest generation."
"I do not know if there will ever be another Storis," he said. "But if there is, if I could stand before the sailors of a future Storis on the day when the new ship is commissioned in a Coast Guard fleet yet to be I would tell them that you stand on the shoulders of titans. You've joined a legacy of greatness. And one day your deeds, like them, will be legend."
Efforts were made by a group, including some Juneau residents, to preserve the ship as a museum. But it was sold to a scrap metal dealer for $71,000 and towed to Mexico for dismantling in 2013.
"God, I wish we’d been able to save it. I really did," said Don Beitzel, who told the audience at the film screening he was part of the second-to-last quartermaster class, serving from 2002 to 2005.
Beitzel, said what he remembers most is the middle-of-the-night fishing patrols — encountering Russian boats in particular. Seeing the film, he added, "just fills me with a tingling sensation because I haven't seen that boat in a while."
He said he hasn’t been aboard the new Storis yet, but "if it lives up to its name, it's going be a great boat." However, like Doty, he said the newer vessel’s missions won’t trace the same paths as the original.
"It's not going to be like the original," Beitzel said. "You can't remake the original. In order to do that you literally have to make that boat like that."
Stuebner said his documentary originated when one of the people trying to preserve the ship contacted him — but it would be years later and after the vessel was scrapped that it was completed. However, he said in a sense the Storis lives on through the shared experiences of people associated with the vessel when the film is screened — including a memorable screening during a ComFish Alaska convention in Kodiak.
"At the end, I said, ‘Are there any questions or comments?‘" he said. "And almost every single person in that room had their hand raised. No one had any questions. They just all wanted to tell me about every single time the Storis saved them out on the fishing fleet, Storis gave them a tow, Storis fixed their fuel pump, Storis got a helicopter for a buddy of theirs."
Stuebner said he still has plenty of DVDs of the documentary that were never sold as hoped and people interested in obtaining one can contact him at damonimages@gci.net.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
