July 22, 2009
Whale-watchers weren't wearing life jackets when boat sank off Maine Island
By Jack Keating and Laura Stone
The Province
_______
A whale-watching boat with 32 people aboard hit something in the water off Mayne Island Thursday afternoon and sank.
All the passengers and two crew were rescued quickly by a nearby vessel.
“No one even got wet in the transfer [to the other boat],” said Cedric Towers, president of Vancouver Whale Watch.
Towers said after the boat hit, the 45-foot Zodiac-style vessel began to take on water.
“They tried to take it to a dock, but at that point the pumps couldn’t keep up with the water coming in . . . That boat’s gone down.”
Coast Guard Officer Bruce Campbell said it was very fortunate that the other boat was nearby and was able to immediately rescue everyone from the sinking vessel. The Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Victora sent several rescue units to the scene on Campbell Bay off Mayne Island.
Company general manager Pamela Thurston said passengers were transferred to the Express, another boat belonging to the whale watching company, as the boat sank.
According to witnesses it sank in 10 or 15 minutes.
Thurston described the transfer as “almost like walking onto a bus.”
Passengers returned to the Steveston port at around 4 p.m. They’d been gone since 9 a.m.
Danish tourists on the rescue boat travelling nearby said the engine stopped and they were using water pumps and neither of them worked.
“We were too many people if our boat was going down too it could have been a problem. There were no life jackets. (for the newcomers),” said Hanne Garfort, a tourist from Denmark. We were afraid.”
“We have lifejackets on board for every passenger including children’s sized lifejackets,” Thurston said.
“They’re under their seats, the same as they are on an airplane.”
She also said the boat’s water pumps were technically functioning, but “they weren’t working to keep up with the amount of water that was coming in.”
The Transportation Safety Board will investigate the accident.
© Copyright (c) The Province
|
