Carlton Scott Tittums

Carlton Tittums was an experienced deckhand working on the Belo Star in 2011. He was 34 years old, had a partner and a child. He was a strong swimmer and a confident crew member.

Belo Star LFBF 797, is a 23.3-metre steel prawn trawler, built in 1972, that was fishing the Shark Bay Prawn Fishery. Her skipper is Greg Ayres, who was the master of the vessel in 2011, and the vessel had four deckhands, including Carlton.

On 27 July 2011 at 8am, Belo Star dropped anchor off the coast at Carnarvon after four days at sea. The sea was choppy, with a moderate swell. There were strong winds blowing. The crew remained on board.

Around 1pm Carlton was standing at the stern of the boat when a dinghy approached. Carlton recognised the man in the dinghy as David Strong, a friend he had not seen for several years. David tied his dinghy to the stern of Belo Star and went aboard. After a few minutes, David realised the rope securing his dinghy had snapped and the dinghy had drifted away.

David was wearing a lifejacket, and asked Carlton to tie a rope to it. With the rope attached, David jumped into the sea and started swimming after his dinghy.

Carlton tied extra lengths of rope onto David’s tether as he kept swimming. Then, Carlton jumped into the water, and swam past David towards the dinghy. He was not wearing a lifejacket, or a rope attached to him. David saw Carlton swimming strongly, and returned to Belo Star and climbed back on board.

From the deck, David watched Carlton swimming to the dinghy. At 2pm he was swimming strongly, but after some time he slowed. David ran to the wheelhouse and woke Greg, who was initially confused as to who David was and why he was aboard Belo Star. It remains unclear why David approached the prawn trawler in rough seas, whether he knew Carlton was aboard, how well they knew each other, and the reason David was aboard Belo Star. The inquest was nine years later, which also led to some confusion of memories of the incident.

When Greg got to the deck and saw the dinghy, it was about 30 metres away, and Carlton was about 100 metres from the Belo Star. His thongs were on the deck at the stern of the boat. Greg thought Carlton was swimming strongly. He handed a pair of binoculars to David and told him to keep watching Carlton. Greg went to contact the Carnarvon Volunteer Marine Rescue (VMR) to report his deckhand was overboard. Greg woke his crew. He also rang the master of his fleet, who was on the Phat Cat nearby, and asked for his help.

Belo Star raised anchor and attempted to move closer to Carlton, although Greg was concerned the water was shallow.

When they moved David lost sight of Carlton. It was 2.30pm, half an hour after Carlton had jumped into the sea. Greg alerted the skipper of the Phat Cat that he was starting to run aground in the shallows, and Belo Star returned to the spot where she was previously moored. There were recreational vessels in the area that heard Greg’s call to Phat Cat and the VMR, and they began searching for Carlton.

The VMR contacted Police at 2.15pm and launched their rescue vessel, collecting David from Belo Star. David boarded Phat Cat and helped secure his dinghy onboard, and then boarded the rescue vessel.

The State Emergency Services Unit (SES) provided flood boats to search the mangroves and the fascine. A helicopter and a fixed wing plane joined the search, and Police vehicles searched the coastline. A team of divers from the Water Police left Perth and travelled to Carnarvon. Despite an extensive search by land, sea and air over four days, no trace of Carlton was found.

On 30 March 2011, the Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant for Carlton when he failed to attend Supreme Court in relation to a charge of Criminal Damage by Fire and Failing to Reasonably Ensure that Fire/Ignition Source did/would not Cause a Fire that could Not be Controlled. He had not made a plea for the charges. He was due to appear before the Court again on 8 August 2011.

It is still a mystery why Carlton jumped into the sea in the choppy conditions without a lifejacket when the dinghy had already drifted so far from Belo Star. At the inquest, Greg said he found an empty vodka bottle in Carlton’s shared cabin, which seemed odd because he did not allow alcohol on board while the boat was working. The inquest found Carlton’s death to be an accident, and it will never be clear why Belo Star lost her deckhand.