A report on the 2022 capsizing of an ecotourism boat in Gwaii Haanas says more is needed to ensure the safety of small commercial vessels.
No one was hurt when after turning broadside to the wind in heavy waves, the 42-foot Island Bay started heeling to one side, took on water and then capsized on the morning of Sept. 8, 2022. It all happened within sight of a safe anchorage in Carpenter Bay.
All five passengers and two crew managed to get safely ashore in a rigid-hull inflatable boat the Island Bay was towing, but only after one passenger got swept away from the boats and had to be rescued.
The group made a campfire on the shore. About six hours later, the Canadian Coast Guard ship Cape Kuper arrived to take them to Daajing Giids.
Some fuel spilled into the waters around Kiju Point, where the Island Bay eventually drifted and ran aground with just its masts above water. But a unified team from Coast Guard, the Council of the Haida Nation and Parks Canada managed to ring the Island Bay with containment boom and deploy absorbent pads before it was pulled up and barged to Prince Rupert for salvage nine days later.
In his report for the Transportation Safety Board published Sept. 12, lead investigator Golam Morshed said the Island Bay sinking is one of a string of accidents that suggest Transport Canada needs to do more to tackle what is a known problem — a lack of effective safety checks for commercial vessels with a volume under 15 gross tonnes.
One of the key findings is that some major modifications to the Island Bay made it vulnerable to heeling, or leaning to one side.
Built in 1979 as a fishing boat that slept two, in 1998 a new owner turned it into an ecotourism boat by extending the stern, installing a kayak rack and adding to the deckhouse so it could sleep up to eight people.
By adding weight, especially up high on the boat, the changes reduced the boat’s buoyancy and raised its centre of gravity, making it harder for the boat to right itself.
The taller deckhouse also caught more wind load.
But none of those changes were passed on to the new owners when the boat was sold to Victoria-based Archipelago Ventures, or when the company later changed owners.
It was never stability-tested again following the major changes made in 1998. The new owners did not know it should be.
The two people who owned the vessel were the ones crewing the Island Bay when it sank. They were appropriately trained, their boat had worked well for 20 years, insurers had looked at it, and it was registered with Transport Canada’s voluntary safety program for small commercial passenger vessels.
At one point during registration, a tonnage measurer might have flagged the boat’s changed length, height, and volume. But the measurer left the dimensions part of a report blank, so Transport Canada registered it with the original numbers.
Just before it capsized, the Island Bay’s crew turned it to port so they could get to safety in Carpenter Bay. The wind was gusting 40 to 50 knots and the waves were three and four metres high.
Unfortunately, the tidal current had started running opposite the wind. Once the boat turned, it was getting hit broadside by strong wind with waves crashing on the other side. It was the last straw for a boat already made vulnerable to capsizing.
In 2002, Transport Canada stepped up safety inspections of small commercial vessels.
Across Canada, the agency inspected 981, about two or three per cent of the national total, and found 84 per cent did not comply with safety regulations.
In 2023, they inspected 212 in Pacific waters only and found deficiencies on half of them.