A grand jury in Providence, Rhode Island, just indicted the captain of a Princess 60 who ran down and killed a fisherman on a 23-foot Steiger Craft two years ago off Napatree Point on charges of seaman’s manslaughter. The indictment says that Cooper Bacon, 76 and a Coast Guard-licensed captain, was running his 60-foot yacht on autopilot and was not paying attention when he hit Walter Krupinski, 81, who was returning home to Stonington, Connecticut, after fishing.
Bacon was enroute from Newport, Rhode Island, to Stamford, Connecticut, and running his Princess at 25 knots at 10:30 in the morning of Sept. 22, 2015, a clear, sunny day. Bacon said at the time that he hadn’t seen the Steiger Craft.
The indictment says that Bacon failed to take precautions required by the ordinary practice of seaman; adequately assess the risk of collision; proceed at a safe speed, and much more.
In an earlier trial before a Rhode Island magistrate, a state environmental management officer who investigated the accident testified that “the Princess essentially rode over the boat Mr. Krupinski was in. It ramped up and over his boat.” The magistrate in that trial found Bacon guilty of three violations of Coast Guard navigation rules.
Read more: http://wpri.com/2017/12/07/captain-indicted-on-manslaughter-charge-in-fatal-westerly-boat-crash/
