Pritipaul Singh Investments says not all their fault
PRITIPAUL Singh Investments says that not all of the blame for the fire aboard the ‘Captain Lloyd 97’ on June 19, 2010 was the company’s but that it will abide by the recommendations for the safety of its vessels and crew. A few days ago, the Board of Inquiry which was ordered to do an investigation into the explosion, released its report which concluded that the fire on the trawler was due to the faulty alternator which had an exposed sparking section of wire. The sparks made contact with the hot running main engine and ignition took place.
“Had the alternator been carefully checked, serviced or repaired or replaced with a proper functioning one this casualty may not have occurred. From the statements of the crewmembers, the Board has concluded that there was nothing that they could have done when the fire instantaneously engulfed the vessel but try to save themselves,” the report concluded.

The report found that one small lifeboat was onboard but it had no paddles or oars, neither was there a bailer. “The lifeboat did not have a bow line of sufficient length attached to it,” the report said.

It found that two lifebuoys were onboard, but they were not fitted with lifebuoy lights nor did they have lifebuoy lines of the approved length.

“The required number of life jackets were on board but the board could not ascertain whether they were of the approved type for this area of operation,” the report stated.

According to the report, fire extinguishers were on board, but there was no evidence to support their state of serviceability. “No fire buckets were on board, no hand or rocket parachute flares were on board, no orange smoke signals were on board, no lamps were on board, no code flags were on board,” the report said.

According to the report, there is documented evidence which indicates that the vessel has a history of a malfunctioning alternator as recorded in the captain’s report/work sheet on a number of different occasions during this year. But despite all of these recordings, Wilfred Singh, the Fleet Operations Manager at Providence stated that while he knew of the problem on board the vessel, he was not aware of the specifics of the problem.
The report said that Annanddeo Jaikaran, an electrician whose duties are to attend to electrical problems on board the trawlers stated that there was not an electrical problem on board the Captain Lloyd 97 when the vessel returned to port on a previous trip. “However the captain’s report on May 31, 2010 where the problem was recorded had nothing to support that it was attended to,” the report said.

It noted that in keeping with the contract with the captain, the company undertakes to provide a vessel that is structurally sound and fitted with serviceable mechanical, electrical and electronic equipment; in other words, a seaworthy vessel. “The company was in clear breach of this obligation,” said the report.

It said while the practice is that the captain employs his own crew which should be competent to perform the functions on board the ship, this was not complied with. “The company has clearly not paid attention to the competence or experience of the crew employed by the captain, thus resulting in young men who have no experience or relevant training being employed to go to sea, an extremely dangerous practice,” said the report.
“Further the practice of having maintenance personnel who are not licensed to be in command of a vessel maneuvering and testing trawlers in pilotage and harbour areas poses a threat to the safety of other mariners,” the report said.

A source within Pritipaul Singh Investments said that while the company does not agree with all aspects of the report coming out of the investigation of the accident and fire aboard the trawler ‘Captain Lloyd’, it will endeavour to implement the recommendations.

But the person said that while this is the position of the company, it is not fully to blame since the captain of the trawler is also culpable for some of the instances of non-compliance.

According to the source, the captain knew of the deficiencies of the vessel and said nothing to the principals. Further, the source blamed the captain for some of the shortcomings of the trawler since it was his duty to report instances of items missing from the vessel. But the source said that, in some cases, this was not done by the captain for fear of being made to pay for the missing items.

“We constantly put systems in place but the captains do not report when items are lost because they fear being made to pay for them,” the source posited.

The report of the preliminary inquiry into the trawler accident said there is no documented chain of command for the Providence location of the company’s operations neither is there any documented job description for any appointment.

Although the operations manager is the person responsible for contracting captains of trawlers, the report said he is “not conversant enough with the seafaring profession” to determine their competence other than as it relates to experience and knowledge to harvest marine resources.

Further, the report said that there are middle management and supervisory personnel who are not adequately trained to undertake their duties professionally.

“It is abundantly clear that the emphasis in the company is to maximise production, which is expected and understandable, but this ought not to be achieved at the expense of health and safety of employees and contractors,” the report said.

According to the report, personnel are clueless as to the requirements necessary to maintain functioning and serviceable fire-fighting equipment, hence the unacceptable state of these equipment. “No safety management exists at this facility,” the probe found.