Sinking death trawler Sarah Jayne 'overloaded'

[alant]

I addressed that in my original post. True on a pitching and rolling boat a load line is not much use, but inspection of the load line once in port at various times with various loads would give you a good idea of what the holds look like when your fully laden.

With hatches open to accept any catch, any rogue waves would simply swamp the boat, fill the holds, with any load line marks then being simple decoration & of little use whatsoever. Just bad luck, with the skipper doing exactly what he'd probably done countless times in the past.
Sad.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

With hatches open to accept any catch, any rogue waves would simply swamp the boat, fill the holds, with any load line marks then being simple decoration & of little use whatsoever. Just bad luck, with the skipper doing exactly what he'd probably done countless times in the past.
Sad.

http://www.maib.gov.uk/home/index.cfm

There is a lot more to it as noted in the MAIB report linked above: fish hold hatches open that should have been closed - the fish are loaded through smaller hatches via separate deck 'pounds' so that the big hatch is not opened, official stability rating notes on how to manage stability not followed but signed off on by the skipper, modifications which reduced the stability of the vessel by allowing free water to flow. It's a series of actions, over years, that all lined up on the day to catch the skipper out. Bad luck did not come into unfortunately.

The MAIB report details the legislation that this size of fishing boat operates under, which explains the lack of any load line. It also details the mess of legislation that could have contributed to a misunderstanding in loading. However, the boat did have detailed stability calculations and notes on how the boat should be operated which were on the boat and accepted by the skipper.