Shipping traffic on the Wadden Sea must and can be safer, says Erica Bakkum of the Dutch Safety Board.
According to her, the accident in the Schuitengat is a combination of factors. The communication between them was unclear and the sailing was too fast. “The time to make a decision has therefore been enormously shortened, resulting in this fatal accident,” says Bakkum, known in Friesland as co-director of Medical Center Leeuwarden (between 2018 and 2021).
Over the past year, she has experienced “very open and honest cooperation” from everyone involved. “Because no one wants something like this to happen again.” The most important recommendation in the OVV report presented on Wednesday is that those involved address each other about their sailing behavior, says Bakkum.
The sense of community will help the research council advise the shipping company Doeksen, water taxi company De Bazuin, Rijkswaterstaat and the transport inspectorate to make clear and concrete agreements about communication and sailing behavior. “They don’t want this to happen again, and in any case they want to greatly reduce the chance of it happening.”
The OVV recommends using each other’s expertise and training for unsafe situations. Doeksen had coincidentally already started this two weeks before the accident, with new simulation training programs for the fast boat at the Maritime Academy in Harlingen.
‘There are no speed cameras on the mudflats’
A second step is that legislation and regulations can be improved. For example, enforcement of speeding violations is now difficult. Ships must be caught red-handed by patrol boats, indirect data such as data that is visible to everyone must not be used for privacy reasons, among other things. “There are no speed cameras on the mudflats. It is a large area, with varying tide and weather conditions. Better ways of controlling speed remain unused. You can adjust laws and regulations accordingly.”
The legislation and regulations for water taxis also need to be clearer. Small passenger boats with a maximum of 12 people on board are now regarded as fast boats in one law and as ferries in the other, says Bakkum. “That causes differences in interpretation.”
Doeksen and De Bazuin are taking the recommendations to heart and have already implemented several improvements.