A Scots deckhand who drowned and seven other crew who were rescued after a fishing boat capsized off the coast of Norway were not wearing lifejackets, an investigation has found.
Ronald Mackinnon, 56, from Peterhead, lost his life when the UK-registered Njord trawler got into difficulty west of Stavanger in March 2022.
A probe by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) has now found that none of the eight crew ‘were able to don personal flotation devices or lifejackets’ after the boat suffered a ‘substantial list’ and started taking on water.
The report states that the crew had been taking on an ‘unusually large haul of fish’ when the tragedy happened.
Images taken at the time show the men, dressed in waterproof overalls and jackets, standing on the capsized vessel 150 miles off the Aberdeenshire coast, with only a life ring for safety.
They spent 45 minutes on the upturned hull before the helicopter arrived.
But the boat sank within minutes of its arrival. The reports states: ‘All eight crew members entered the water and one drowned before he could be rescued’.
A rescue ship collected five of the men, while the aircraft pulled Mr Mackinnon and two others out of the water and flew them Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen, Norway, where the experienced deckhand was pronounced dead.
The report stated the post-mortem examination recorded drowning as his cause of death. The two other crew members were kept in for observation and discharged three days later.
An attempt had been made by the skipper to make a mayday call with a handheld VHF radio but the battery failed.
The MAIB report said ‘fortunately’, Njord’s emergency position indicating radio beacon floated free of the wreck and alerted search and rescue authorities, who sent a helicopter and a nearby vessel to assist.
It found the Njord overturned after a sinking net of fish secured to the starboard trawl winch acted on a handrail on the vessel’s starboard side, causing it to list.
A valve in a drain in the weather-tight bulkhead on the boat’s starboard working deck had also been left open, which allowed ‘down-flooding into its internal spaces’, causing it to list even further.
The investigation concluded modifications that had been made to Njord to enhance fishing performance reduced the safety margin of the vessel’s transverse stability and this led to the boat capsizing.
The MAIB offered no formal recommendations but said it had issued a safety flyer to the fishing industry and reminded owners and operators of fishing vessels to consult with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency before undertaking any significant modifications.