The Mar­itime Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port has launched a full-scale in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the ac­ci­dent in­volv­ing the Galleons Ad­ven­tur­er, an off­shore sup­ply ves­sel which sank off the wa­ters of Grena­da last Thurs­day, in which six Trinida­di­ans were in­volved.

Five were res­cued but the cap­tain is still miss­ing.

Di­rec­tor of the Mar­itime Di­vi­sion, Roland Al­fred told the T&T Guardian that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion would in­volve speak­ing with the five Trinida­di­ans who re­turned home last week­end af­ter the ac­ci­dent.

But, he said, the in­ves­ti­ga­tion would be “com­pli­cat­ed” since “half of the ev­i­dence—the ves­sel is be­low the sea.”

How­ev­er, he is hop­ing that the men who were on board can shed some light as to what caused the ves­sel to sink. Ini­tial re­ports from the Grena­da Coast Guard had in­di­cat­ed that the ves­sel was trans­port­ing con­crete slabs and the car­go shift­ed be­cause of rough seas.

Al­fred said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion will seek to de­ter­mine “the cause of the ac­ci­dent, whether there was “hu­man er­ror or fail­ure in the boat.”

The aim of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, he said, is “not to find who is to blame, but to de­ter­mine what hap­pened and to put mea­sures in place to en­sure that it does not hap­pen again.”

The cap­tain, who is a key part of the puz­zle, is still miss­ing and Al­fred said “let’s hope he was float­ing and was res­cued. I will not give up hope, that he is still alive.”

Apart from ques­tion­ing the men who were on the ves­sel, the own­er of the Galleons Ad­ven­tur­er will al­so be ques­tioned and Al­fred said at­tempts will al­so be made “to find the peo­ple who res­cued them.”

The Coast Guard, which is re­spon­si­ble for search and res­cue, will al­so be ques­tioned on what they did when the call came in, the time the call came in and take an over­all look at the re­sponse.

Al­fred said “the full-scale in­ves­ti­ga­tion will be holis­tic and will look at what hap­pened and how it was treat­ed with, to see what we need to do to im­prove if any­thing at all.”

The T&T Guardian spoke with one of the men who was on the ves­sel but he said he was “still shak­en up,” and un­able to speak about it.”

He said oth­er crew mem­bers were “not do­ing well,” and lament­ed that the cap­tain “is still miss­ing.” (RS)