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Safety on the world's 700 sail training tall ships has been called into doubt, Sail World reports.
The concern comes following an investigation into the sinking of Canadian tall ship Concordia off the coast of Brazil last year.
The ship capsized in a squall on 17 February 2010. All 64 passengers and crew spent two days adrift in lifeboats before being rescued.
Investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada concluded last week that no action was taken to prevent capsizing, such as reducing sail or changing course, because the officer-in-charge did not realise the ship was in danger.
The board also learned that the officer-in-charge was able to get his certification without having to familiarise himself with information on the handling and stability of the ship, and found that this lack of a requirement is universal across the world's sail training vessels.
Senior investigator Paulo Ekkebus said this was "a large concern" and called for stricter standards worldwide.
He added: "We’ve not been able to find any country, any flag-state, requiring the study, or for people that they are familiar with this type of information, if it is provided on board the ship."
Sail World has much more on the story HERE.

Safety on the world's 700 sail training tall ships has been called into doubt, Sail World reports.

The concern comes following an investigation into the sinking of Canadian tall ship Concordia off the coast of Brazil last year.

The ship capsized in a squall on 17 February 2010. All 64 passengers and crew spent two days adrift in lifeboats before being rescued.

Investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada concluded last week that no action was taken to prevent capsizing, such as reducing sail or changing course, because the officer-in-charge did not realise the ship was in danger.

The board also learned that the officer-in-charge was able to get his certification without having to familiarise himself with information on the handling and stability of the ship, and found that this lack of a requirement is universal across the world's sail training vessels.

Senior investigator Paulo Ekkebus said this was "a large concern" and called for stricter standards worldwide.

He added: "We’ve not been able to find any country, any flag-state, requiring the study, or for people that they are familiar with this type of information, if it is provided on board the ship."

Sail World has much more on the story HERE.

Published in Tall Ships

About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).