Coast Guard opens routine inquiry into fatal boat incident

Two female passengers and the new wife of a man lost at sea Saturday spent most of Monday answering questions from the Coast Guard — and the man’s children.

Realtor associate Amalia Johles said the three of them, who were aboard the 33-foot power boat Ikaika, met with Kenan Knieriem’s daughter, Katie, and son, Kenan Jr., at the Coast Guard office.

“I think they were really in shock and they just wanted to know what happened,” said Johles, 39. “We kept telling them what happened. It was a horrific event and we did everything we could. … We were the last point of contact with their father.”

The three provided a gripping account of how Knieriem fell off the boat and Johles jumped into the ocean with 4-foot seas, and local entrepreneur Debi Knieriem, also known as Debi Ozawa, followed, trying to save Knieriem, but he was swept away.

Johles said she was told they were going to fish at Penguin Bay, presumably Penguin Bank, a submarine shelf that extends west from Molokai.

She said they left the Hawaii Kai marina at 6:30 a.m. Saturday.

Interior designer Rosina Ho, 60, said an alarm sounded signaling a fish had hit a line, and Knieriem put the boat in neutral and told her to reel the fish in. While Knieriem was trying to gaff the large mahimahi, he fell in.

Johles said that was about 8 a.m. 

Johles said she and Debi Knieriem jumped in the water, but were unable to bring Knieriem back aboard in heavy seas. She said they let him go for fear of drowning themselves.

The Coast Guard said it received notification from Knieriem’s wife at 8:50 a.m. and searched for 10 hours, covering 117 square miles. Unlike a death on land or within 3 nautical miles of land — where police homicide detectives routinely investigate, the Coast Guard has jurisdiction outside the 3-mile limit.

When the Coast Guard received the report, the boat was 13 miles south of Hawaii Kai, said Lt. Leigh Cotterell.

He said the Coast Guard is conducting a routine investigation.

“It’s like a vessel ran aground somewhere,” he said. “We’d be doing the same thing.”

Cotterell said the Coast Guard will go through the elements, find the facts, the human factors involved, any equipment failure and anything that was “a part of the causal chain that led to the accident or incident.”

Knieriem has served as senior vice president for investments at Merrill Lynch and manager of the Honolulu office.

Knieriem and his wife, Debi, had been married two weeks.

“You think you’re going on an innocent fishing trip and it ends in a horrendous nightmare,” said Johles.