Canada ups safety standards on sailing ships

News was prepared under the information support of Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and international Shipping "Hellenic Shipping News".

31 Oct 2008

A Canadian investigation into the loss at sea of the daughter of the general manager of the Montreal Canadiens hockey team recommended new safety standards on sail training vessels in a report released Thursday.
Laura Gainey was swept from a Nova Scotia tall ship, the Picton Castle, on Dec. 8, 2006, during a mid-Atlantic storm as the vessel was en route from Nova Scotia to the Caribbean.
She had been working as a volunteer crew member aboard the vessel, which gives prospective sailors hands-on training.
The Transportation Safety Board's report indicates a lack of clearly written safety procedures on the ship and a lack of safety management structures to help prevent risky situations.
"It is a case study for what happens when safety or risk management systems are not in place" Bob Gainey, her father, said Thursday.
When Gainey, a methodical and quiet man who once captained the Canadiens, reviewed the report into the accident, he said he still felt "sadness as to how this accident happened."
"It was so preventable," he said as he traveled near Ithica, New York.
The report also said that deckhands did not receive clear orders to stay away from the deck area during a storm, when it's believed Gainey went overboard.
According to crew testimony, the 25-year-old woman remained on the deck because she believed it was her duty to do "ship checks," despite orders by the captain at the time, Michel Vogelsgesang, to go below to rest. She apparently didn't understand that the order was for her safety, not for her to take a break.
"It is likely the deckhand understood the master's order to go below only in the context of getting rest between ship checks," said the report.
The investigation also questioned the decision to sail despite long-range weather forecasts calling for storm conditions, noting that a number of crew lacked training.
Arrangements were being made for the ship to be in a television production, and it was scheduled to pick up more trainees in the Caribbean.
"Given the financial benefit associated with proceeding with the voyage, this increased pressure to sail," said the report.
The Transportation Safety Board used the accidental death to stress that in Canada that there are no mandatory safety standards that are enforceable, and it urges Transport Canada to create safety rules for all sail training vessels.
The report also urges the federal agency to work with the International Marine Organization to create international safety standards to ensure that foreign flagged vessels using Canadian ports can be properly monitored.
The Picton Castle is registered in the Cook Islands, a tiny South Pacific nation, even though it spends the bulk of its time in between international voyages in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, and has ownership based in North America.
Since the accident, the Picton Castle has improved its safety rules, and audits have shown it now requires formal training of crew.

Source: Associated Press