Date of incident: August 2020
Notice of incident number: 2020182750057
Employer: Gillnet and troll fishing company

Incident summary
While tuna fishing on the open ocean, a vessel suddenly started taking on water for undetermined reasons in the middle of the night. The crew of three abandoned the foundering vessel. The vessel master and one deckhand (Deckhand 1) were not able to get into the life raft and drowned. A third member of the crew (Deckhand 2) was rescued from the raft by a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter. The vessel sank several hours after the mayday call.

Investigation conclusions

Cause

• Inadequate abandon-ship procedure. Prior to the incident the vessel master and Deckhand 2 heard a loud bang. The vessel began to take on water rapidly enough to cause the master to transmit a mayday request for assistance and then to abandon the vessel. The master had the deckhands don their immersion suits, and then directed them to remove the life raft from its cradle, lower it to the main deck, and throw it over the side of the vessel. The master lost hold of the line for the raft, which began drifting. The master jumped into the ocean to retrieve the raft but was not able to get to it. Deckhand 2 then had to go overboard to retrieve the raft. Deckhand 1 also jumped into the water but was not able to get to the raft.
        An abandon-ship procedure had not been practised; the crew therefore had to learn how to abandon ship during the emergency. If the life raft had been thrown straight into the ocean from its cradle, as is standard procedure, control of the line would likely not have been lost, and the master and Deckhand 1 might have been able to reach the raft.
• Immersion suits not properly donned. None of the crewmembers had their immersion suits done up fully when they abandoned ship. Deckhand 2 was able to get into the life raft. Neither the master nor Deckhand 1 was able to reach the raft, so they got a large amount of water in their immersion suits. The inability of the crew to correctly don their immersion suits before entering the water resulted in the crewmembers not being protected from the hazard of cold water exposure as intended.

Contributing factors

• Inadequate instruction of workers. Neither deckhand had received instruction on deploying the life raft, person overboard procedures, radio use, various alarms such as water entry into the ship, or use of PFDs.

Other safety issue

• Lack of up-to-date Transport Canada inspection. The vessel had been fishing in U.S. waters, and was re-registered in Canada in July 2018. Re-registering the vessel in Canada triggered a requirement for the vessel to undergo a Transport Canada inspection, which would have included taking it out of the water for a thorough inspection of the hull and all through-hull fittings.

Request the full report