The SAAF Forum

Just to expand on this have heard tell that the raft was intentionally released at the same time as they started handing out lifejackets. Apparently (also taproom gossip amongst some of the people involved) the stern was swamped by a wave - which killed both engines. After which she broached and rolled. Why she should have done so, unless it was a humungous wave is unclear. No doubt the board of inquiry will listen to all the reports and decide on one they like.

Here is the report on the accident.

http://www.pod702.co.za/Eyewitnessnews/docs/121024miroshga.pdf

So many things wrong and all so preventable.

It's merely the preliminary findings - the full report will take some time yet....
What puzzles me is how a boat, only marginally bigger than a Namacurra, be licensed to carry 45 people.

Below an extract from comments by the company who built the boat in 2003.

http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/ ... -1.1410693

If you look at the raised viewing platform that was somehow added on to the deck, supposedly to carry 17 people .... the mind boggles! In the usual cliched manner, this was an accident waiting to happen - and it did.

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Stability is a function of metacentric height and centre of gravity. By adding tophamper and removing weight from below one does alter this relationship fundamentally. However in most designs one does cater for a large margin of safety. Where the metacentric height and centre of gravity are close to each other one tends to get an "uncomfortable" vessel in that the period of roll becomes long and hesitant. One would have thought that the licensing authority would have taken cognizance of these factors after the modifications. However hindsight is a perfect science and doubt there has ever been a disaster on earth where someone, somewhere hasn't had the satisfaction of saying "I told you!". Some of the preliminary finding are interesting - but hardly contributed to the reason the vessel capsized - lack of the skipper's licensing for instance. If you are a competent seaman then the frills and extras really have no role in your actual seamanship. One thing that has always been a factor in catamaran stability is the question of what happens when one pontoon floods, in other words adding weight to one side of the vessel - which seems to have been the case here. Catamaran designs have always been more prone to capsizing than monohulls.

Presume you are the 'Investigating Official' duly appointed by the authorities, what would the main thrust of your enquiry be:-

- would you concentrate on the competency of skipper and crew

or

- would you delve into the serviceability and seaworthiness of the vessel

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Both. The factors cannot be divorced. From the preliminary report it does seem both were in error. However it is still too early to get out the lynch mob. I wasn't there so I cannot say what the sea was doing - although from a few miles away the weather at the time did not seem so bad. To not realise that one had serious flooding problems does seem to smack of a lapse in crew competency. An incompetent captain can wreck a perfectly seaworthy vessel and a competent one can go down on an unseaworthy one! Whoever wired up the bilge float indicators last might have some nasty questions to answer - but it should also have been checked and the error noticed before. It's as simple as lifting a float up and seeing what happens. And that is going to take some explaining by a lot of the people involved. One gets a feeling that SAMSA might be covering for the competency of it's inspectors as well - they are the guys who signed off on the seaworthiness reports. Whether the real truth will emerge is problematical as everyone will be trying to cover their own and shift blame wherever possible. I still think 45 people is a little overloaded for that sized boat! And allowing 17 up on the viewing platform might really have been pushing things. I used to have a skippers ticket for a 45 footer - way back when - and if I recall correctly we were limited to 16 persons aboard that particular boat. I was also qualified to take charge of the 41 foot Seaplane tenders at Flamingo and the 26 foot marine tenders so I have some experience of actually captaining small craft and I do know just how unforgiving the sea can be - and if you start losing power close to shore you have real problems! From the reports it would appear that the captain of this vessel was slow to realise he had major problems and slow to react to them. But that is just from reading the report - I was not there.

Totally van die "os op die jas" ever since reading the preliminary report I cannot get the phrase used to baffle young roofies in basic training out of my mind: "Make fast the lazy painter to the eye of the lizard". Or translated: "tie the rope in the bow of the boat to the loop on the boom sticking out from the side of the ship". Maritime terminology can be baffling!