Deadly Bights Are Deadlier Without Lifejackets

Britain’s Mar­itime Acci­dent Inves­ti­ga­tion Branch has pub­lished it’s pre­lim­i­nary report into the loss of a sea­farer was lost over­board after he stepped into the bight of a spliced back­rope despite the best efforts of the crew to save him. He was not wear­ing a life­jacket. His body remains lost.

There is, of course, always an excuse for not wear­ing a life­jacket, excuses that reg­u­larly cosy those in the fish­ing indus­try their lives. Of course, there can be no 100 per cent guar­an­tee that this sea­farer would have sur­vived had he been wear­ing a life­jacket but in a life-threatening sit­u­a­tion you need all the edge you can get.

Says the MAIB Pre­lim­i­nary report: Noronya was fish­ing for brown crab and had returned to recover the remain­ing part of a string of creels, which had been left after the back­rope had bro­ken dur­ing a pre­vi­ous attempt to haul it on board. Once the remain­ing part was recov­ered, it was spliced with the other part of the back­rope to repair the string.

The lay­out of the deck had been con­sid­ered care­fully, with a hop­per set into the deck to store the back­rope away from the work­ing area and bar­ri­ers to sep­a­rate the crew from the back­rope as it was shot away. How­ever, the spliced part of the back­rope was left hang­ing over the safety bar­rier to stop it from becom­ing tan­gled as the rest of the back­rope paid out.

Shortly after shoot­ing away the marker buoys and weight, a crew­man began tog­gling creels on to the back­rope. Three creels were shot, when the crewman’s leg became caught in the bight of the back­rope near the spliced repair. Despite the best efforts of the crew, he was dragged over the side. He was not wear­ing a life­jacket and although there was an exten­sive search and res­cue oper­a­tion, his body could not be found.

Actions taken:

The Chief Inspec­tor has writ­ten to the owner and skip­per, recog­nis­ing their attempts to develop a safer sys­tem for shoot­ing creels and con­grat­u­lated them on their pos­i­tive efforts. The method used to repair the splice, intro­duced a new haz­ard and the Chief Inspec­tor has advised the owner to:

• Reassess the risks asso­ci­ated with repair­ing the back­rope, develop a bet­ter method of mak­ing repairs and make sure that crew fol­low this method.
• Pro­vide life­jack­ets and encour­age crew to use them when they are work­ing where there is a risk that they could fall, or be dragged into the water.
• Mod­ify the pro­ce­dure for mark­ing the posi­tion of the creels, so that the skip­per can mon­i­tor the crew while they are work­ing with the gear.
• Make sure that skip­pers man­age their work so that they and the crew can get ade­quate rest.

The MAIB Report can be found here