Word: coasted
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Despite early criticism of Hazelwood's conduct, the Coast Guard maintains that his handling of the ship after it ran aground was exemplary. Not only did he help prevent the oil spill from being even worse, but his actions may have saved lives as well. By adjusting the engine power, the captain was able to keep the vessel stable and pressed firmly against the reef...
...Hazelwood did not win his battle with the bottle. Not long after he left the hospital, he was reinstated as the skipper of the Yorktown, an oil tanker that ran along the East Coast. Friends say that being closer to home helped him dry out. He regularly attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in Huntington right up through 1988, but the sessions were often jammed with up to 90 alcoholics at a time. "The place was a social club," complains a former participant who remembers Hazelwood. "Only about ten or 15 people ever had a chance to talk." That seems to have...
...attorneys, to labor over the cumbersome paperwork that had increasingly become his duty because of crew cutbacks. He returned to the bridge at roughly 11:15 p.m., shortly before the state's harbor pilot, following routine, departed from the ship at Rocky Point. Soon thereafter Hazelwood radioed the Coast Guard to say he would move the vessel from the outbound shipping lane to the inbound shipping lane to avoid ice. It was the last maneuver of Hazelwood's Exxon career...
...Coast Guard investigator Mark Delozier, who climbed aboard the Valdez more than three hours after the accident, says he found a "very intense" smell of alcohol on Hazelwood's breath. But Delozier also says Hazelwood did not appear intoxicated or impaired. "He was very professional," he says. "He didn't appear to be at a loss of any capabilities." No one who was aboard the Valdez has contradicted Delozier...
Beyond the issue of Hazelwood's sobriety, there is the question of whether Cousins was qualified to be in charge of the ship while it was in Prince William Sound. The answer hinges on "pilotage endorsement," a certification from the Coast Guard that entitles a licensed officer to steer ships in certain federal waters. In 1977, when the Alaska pipeline opened, such approval was required all the way down to the entrance of Prince William Sound -- past Rocky Point, Busby Island and Bligh Reef. But since then, the rules have been liberalized several times...