This week a coroner’s court is trying to find out why a fishing boat sank and six fishermen drowned in August 2010. The ship, the Oyang 70, sank in New Zealand waters. It was a Korean ship, chartered by a New Zealand fishing company. Most of the crew were Indonesian. The captain, who died, was Korean. Listen to August 18th 2010 to hear more about this.
The coroner has heard that there were a number of reasons for the tragedy but the main reason was that the fishing net had too many fish in it. It weighed about 120 tonnes which is three times the normal weight of a catch. When the net was brought onto the deck, a lot of water came too, flooding the ship. Maintenance of the ship was also not good. There were not enough safety checks. There was no emergency practice for getting into life boats. There was no emergency lighting for the men to see the life boats. Communication was a problem because most of the men did not speak Korean.
There have been many other problems with foreign fishing boats chartered to New Zealand companies and the government is making changes. All boats will now have an observer to check there is no illegal fishing and to check on conditions for the crew. Some of the crew say that conditions on the boats are bad – poor food, cold temperatures, physical abuse, long hours of work and poor pay.
Listen to December 13th 2010 to hear about another fishing boat tragedy.
Vocabulary
• inquest – a court to find out why or how someone died
• coroner – the judge of this court
• chartered – the NZ company hires foreign boats to do the fishing; the New Zealand company sells the fish
• maintenance – keeping the boat in good condition; maintain (verb) the boat
• physical abuse – being hit