Investigations into what led to the capsizing of the Miroshga near Hout Bay are expected to take at least another week.
|||Cape Town - Investigations into what led to the capsizing of the Miroshga near Hout Bay on Saturday are expected to take at least another week.
David Colly, regional manager for the SA Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa), said they were in the process of reconstructing the course of events to find out what went wrong.
The whale-watching boat was upended on its way to view the seal colony at Duiker Island, spilling its 40 passengers into the sea. Tour guide and crewman John Roberts, 37, and British tourist Peter Hyett , 64, drowned in the accident.
Brad Geyser, NSRI Houtbay’s station commander, was told by the ship’s captain that waves smacking into both sides of the boat had somehow got water into the batteries, causing the motors to fail.
“When a boat like that is stationary in rough conditions, it starts to take on water,” said Geyser.
He said he didn’t know how water got into the hull.
Workers and operators at the harbour agree that the vessel had had its issues in the past, and some suggested that it was overloaded.
But Colly warned against jumping to conclusions: “With incidents such as this there is always more than one factor.”
He added that the vessel had been certified by Samsa to carry that many passengers.
“We go through a stringent process when certifying vessels, more stringent, for example, than places such as the US,” he said. “We are particularly strict when it comes to passenger crafts.”
Sean Amor, captain of the Extravagance, the first boat to come to the aid of the survivors, agreed that the process to obtain certification was stringent.
“You have to send Samsa your boat’s plans from the manufacturer,” he said. “And once a year they come round and inspect the vessel.”
Southern Ambition Marine Safaris, the owners and operators of the Miroshga, told the Cape Argus they would not be commenting on the incident until authorities were done investigating their vessel.
The charter company is set to brief the press within the next three days.
Meanwhile, the autopsy on the body of Hyett, who was on a two-week holiday in Cape Town with his family, was completed on Monday morning. The city’s disaster management spokesman Wilfred Solomons-Johannes confirmed that the 64-year-old man had drowned.
He added that Hyett’s wife, Suzanne, and daughter, Helen, were staying in Cape Town until plans were made to transport his body to the UK, which was expected to happen within the next three days.
kieran.legg@inl.co.za
Cadet news agency
Cape Argus