The Marine Casualty Investigation Board (MCIB) has said that boarding and disembarking risk assessment and associated policies and procedures should “immediately be reviewed” after the serious injury of a diver working on salmon farms off the Galway coast.
The 33-year-old male contract diver, who was contracted by the salmon farm operators to inspect and maintain the salmon cages around Kilkieran Bay, Co Galway, sustained his injuries when he was pinned between two vessels during a transfer from one to the other off Ardmore pier on November 8th, 2022.
The incident occurred when a feed barge was making a rendezvous with a smaller vessel carrying five people, including two contract divers.
The injured casualty was brought back onboard the vessel and was subsequently airlifted to Galway University Hospital (GUH) where his injuries were assessed and included multiple fractures to the pelvis and fractured hip socket joints, the MCIB report says.
At the time of the interview with the MCIB in January 2023, the casualty was out of work, the report notes, and was walking aided by crutches.
Visibility was moderate or poor and winds on the day in question, November 8th 2022, were generally fresh force 5 to strong force 6 (mean wind speed 17 to 27 knots) and gusting up to 40 knots for a time.
In its analysis, the MCIB says that “means of safe access was not appropriate for transferring from one vessel to another and the practice of stepping over the side rails and onto the feed barge’s tyre fender became normalised”.
“ The prevailing conditions including the direction and height of the swell were contributing factors to this incident,”it says, as the licence required the vessel to operate in favourable weather.
There were missed opportunities during the purchase process to verify safe access to and from the vessels as both had safe means of access, but were not compatible when the vessels were moored alongside each other, the MCIB report says.
It says the operator's risk assessment failed to identify the deficiencies in vessel transfer operations and in particular with regard to third parties such as the contracted diver.
It says while the operation was identified by the operator under their safe systems of work, it was not authorised by the Marine Survey Office by way of a “permit to tender”.
In a series of recommendations to the salmon farm operator and owners of the two vessels on reviewing procedures, the MCIB also called on the Minister for Transport, in conjunction with his marine counterpart, to consider if it is “ appropriate or not” to issue a Marine Notice or similar, directed to the operators and those involved in marine aquaculture activities.
It recommends that the Marine Notice would remind operators and all involved of the dangers associated with boarding and transiting vessels at sea;
that operators have a safe system of work including suitable and sufficient risk assessments in place for operations carried out at sea including transfer of personnel onto fish cages and feed barges;
and that operators take steps to ensure that vessels transferring personnel at sea are properly licensed in accordance with passenger boat legislation and “permit to tender” for tendering operations as applicable.
The report is here
