On May 27, 1972, 23-year-old Melvin William Torsen was aboard the 65-foot crabber Addington while crab fishing in Shelikof Strait, near Cape Uganik on the west side of Kodiak Island. The vessel foundered and sank; all three people on board were lost and no survivors or wreck were recovered. Torsen was the skipper and a Kodiak resident. The other two lost were crewman Clarence John Cheplak, 31, of Kodiak, and Leonard Niemi of Anchorage.

The report reached Alaska State Troopers on May 28, 1972. Weather in the region had been severe around that time, with another vessel lost days earlier amid winds reported up to 100 miles per hour, but no definitive cause for the Addington’s sinking is recorded. The case was entered into NamUs on June 10, 2015, to keep the loss on the record.

Did anyone in Kodiak or the fishing community have ties to the Addington’s crew or remember conditions in Shelikof Strait that week?