Judge reserves decision in fatal boat accident

By GREGG WYCHERLEY

The fishing industry is waiting anxiously for a decision in the re-trial of a boat owner who was prosecuted after three men died when his boat sank.

Mark James Mathers was convicted last March for causing or permitting the boat to be operated in a manner which caused unnecessary danger to others.

Mathers was also convicted of operating a vessel without holding a Safe Ship Management Certificate and fined an additional $2500.

But in June last year an Appeal Court judgment overturned the conviction on the charge of causing or permitting a boat to be operated in a manner which caused unnecessary danger to others.

The second trial, this time without a jury, concluded today and after hearing three days of evidence Judge Phillip Cooper reserved his decision until March 21.

The original conviction, and its subsequent overturning, sent shockwaves through the fishing industry, raising the question of whether the verdict shifted responsibility for safety at sea from the skipper of a vessel to its owner - even if the owner was not on board.

The 10m trawler capsized and sank off Tirua Pt, south of Raglan, when it was hit by a huge wave on September 18, 1998.

Those drowned were skipper Jeremy Gray, aged 27, his brother Shane, 18, and their 17-year-old cousin Cory Maniapoto.

Glyn Rees was the only survivor.

The court heard that the vessel had dragged its grapnel anchor, which had been damaged in a previous incident, and was of a type not normally recommended for use on a mud seafloor, as found around Raglan.

It was agreed that the boat left Raglan in an unsafe condition without a dedicated anchor - an omission which presumably played a part in skipper Jeremy Gray's decision to use a makeshift damaged anchor.

Mathers told the court that he had ordered a new boat anchor to replace the original, which had been lost on an earlier trip, and had relied on the skipper to use one of at least four other suitable anchors on board in its absence.

But prosecutor Ross Douch argued that the other anchors on board were normally used only as net anchors and Mathers was negligent in allowing the boat to leave port without supplying a new dedicated anchor, or at least discussing alternative anchoring arrangements with the skipper.

The judge must decide whether it was the responsibility of the owner to ensure that the boat was not allowed to sail without a dedicated anchor secured to the anchor warp, or whether he could have reasonably assumed that the skipper would use one of the other anchors on the boat.