MAIB Commends Skipper For MOB Save

Britain’s Marine Acci­dent Inves­ti­ga­tion Branch, MAIB, has com­mended Peter Laity, the skip­per of a gill net­ter, Ocean Spray, for his actions in sav­ing an MOB in Decem­ber 2009. In an inter­view with Britain’s Daily Mail the over­board sea­farer says: “I saw the net had started to go into a ball over the stern, I looked back at the boat to see if it was all okay, and took my eyes off the anchor for two sec­onds and that was all it took.”

Says MAIB: “The gill net­ter Ocean Spray was shoot­ing the last of her ten nets when a prob­lem with the fish­ing gear was seen by the deck­hand on the port side of the work­ing deck. To rec­tify the prob­lem, the deck­hand moved aft into the area con­tain­ing the rope join­ing the net to its anchor, and became snagged by the rope as it payed out. He was pulled towards the vessel’s port gun­wale until pinned against the safety rail by the net’s anchor.

The skip­per imme­di­ately throt­tled back the engine, at which point the deck­hand was cat­a­pulted over­board, along with the anchor. The deck­hand was dragged under­wa­ter where, although injured, he man­aged to free him­self from the anchor and rope, and sur­face close to the ves­sel. The skip­per and the other deck­hand then pulled him back on board, aided by the rolling of the vessel.

The ves­sel imme­di­ately headed for New­lyn, where the skip­per had arranged for an ambu­lance to meet on arrival by dial­ing the emer­gency ser­vices from his mobile tele­phone. The coast­guard was made aware of the acci­dent by the ambu­lance con­troller, and the Pen­zance lifeboat was acti­vated. The lifeboat escorted Ocean Spray into New­lyn where the injured deck­hand was trans­ferred to an ambu­lance and taken to Treliske hos­pi­tal in Truro.

Actions taken:

The Deputy Chief Inspec­tor of Marine Acci­dents has writ­ten to the owner/skipper com­mend­ing him for his actions in recov­er­ing his deck­hand back on board. He has also advised that he con­sider how this acci­dent could have been pre­vented, and how to improve the chances of a per­son falling over­board sur­viv­ing such an ordeal, tak­ing into account the safety issues identified.

A pre­lim­i­nary report was issued on 20 January.