"The BSU attributes the accident to the weather conditions on site and the crew's lack of sailing experience," is the brief summary of what the one-year investigation into the highly publicised accident revealed from the authority's perspective. But the 61-page report reveals much more.
On 20 January 2009, the German 8.25-metre steel yacht "Taube" sank while attempting to call at the port of Mehdia on the Moroccan Atlantic coast (YACHT 6/09). The case was the subject of unusually emotional public debate. The background to this was the circumstances that led to this sea voyage, but also the way in which it was carried out. With the "Taube", the members of the Migrobirdo association wanted to "turn their backs on the bourgeois life". And so the voyage was approached in a completely unorthodox way. Many voices sought the main cause of the young people's tragic failure here.
The federal agency responsible for investigating the case introduces its analysis at the end of the report now submitted with the words: "After completing the investigation, the BSU assumes that, despite the exceptional circumstances of the sailing project, it was a serious weather accident overall, which could also have happened to far more experienced sailing crews on larger and better equipped yachts."
Nevertheless, the report points out that the safety-related equipment on board was inadequate, particularly with regard to the nautical literature carried. The ship had been overloaded and therefore unseaworthy, and it had also had a leak that had only been repaired in a makeshift manner. The authors of the report attest to the skipper that although he gained experience on the voyage and mastered the difficult sea areas such as the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay without any major problems, overall he was found to have considerable gaps in his knowledge and experience.
Naturally, the Federal Bureau does not conclude by determining who was at fault for the accident, but with safety recommendations to owners and skippers of seagoing pleasure craft, pleasure craft operators' associations, fellow sailors and passengers as well as to the responsible Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development.
The full report can be downloaded here can be downloaded.
Lasse Johannsen
Deputy Editor in Chief YACHT
