Category Archives: grounding

Britain’s MAIB has issued a safety flyer to the cargo indus­try to coin­cide with the release of it’s report into the ground­ing of the Bahamas reg­is­tered ro-ro cargo ves­sel, River­dance, on a pop­u­lar beach near Black­pool, Lancashire.

The report also gives some insight into the chal­lenges fac­ing mar­itime inves­ti­ga­tors: “In the days fol­low­ing the ground­ing of River­dance, poor weather pre­vented access to the ves­sel for all except those directly involved in the sal­vage effort, under the over­sight of the Sec­re­tary of State’s Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Mar­itime Sal­vage and Inter­ven­tion (SOSREP). Since MAIB inspec­tors were pre­vented from board­ing the ves­sel, and salvors’ per­son­nel did not pri­ori­tise the recov­ery of per­ish­able evi­dence, valu­able infor­ma­tion was lost regard­ing the vessel’s phys­i­cal con­di­tion upon ground­ing, together with much of the ship’s doc­u­men­ta­tion and her oper­a­tional records.

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