MO-2007-202 Fishing vessel, Walara-K flooding and sinking, 195 nautical miles off Cape Egmont, 7 March 2007

In the early morning of 7 March 2007, while fishing about 195 nm off the west coast of the North Island, the longline fishing vessel Walara-K took on water in its engine room and sank in 500 m of water within 3 hours. The 3 crew members were able to abandon ship into a liferaft from which they were rescued within 6 hours. The vessel was not recovered.
The loss of the vessel and the absence of key documents have resulted in the Transport Accident Investigation Commission (the Commission) being unable to determine the exact reason for the ship
sinking. From interviewing key people and reviewing available documents, however, the Commission has been able to identify 3 possible causes:
• Intake of water through a modified bilge and water pumping system, either from incorrect valve settings or by debris jamming the valve open. These modifications had not been documented or advised to the SSM company so they had not been inspected. The modifications made unintentional flooding possible. The lack of documentation meant it could not be determined if the changes met the requirements of the Maritime Rules, particularly those concerning non-return valves.
• Corroded hull plating. The vessel was 33 years old and it is conceivable that the hull plating had wasted, even though when sandblasted in 2003 the hull appeared to be in good condition. The actual thickness of the hull was not known.
• Undetected hull damage from a strike by a broken stabiliser arm the previous month. The original stabiliser arm installation had not involved a surveyor as required by the Maritime Rules, and there was no hull inspection made after the breakage.
The vessel’s crew did not meet the qualification standard required to operate beyond 100 nm of the coast.
Had the crew been adequately qualified, they might have been able to respond better to the situation, including using the full bilge pumping capacity to slow the flooding. The skipper was the only person on board with engineering training and knowledge, and he was the sole operator of the engine room equipment. The crew had no duties in the engine room and had not received any training for the equipment, so they would have been unable to operate the vessel if the skipper had become incapacitated.
Maritime New Zealand (Maritime NZ) is currently reviewing crewing requirements for fishing vessels.
In addition, Maritime NZ has an active programme in place to address the issue of vessels operating without adequately qualified personnel on board.
Recommendations were made to the Director of Maritime NZ for her to address the
safety issue of:
• major modifications being carried out without the knowledge of safe ship management companies.