Scots make up half of fishing deaths at sea

HALF of the deaths of commercial fishermen in UK waters last year were in Scotland.

The ten UK-wide fatalities were the highest for a decade, with five of them in Scottish waters, the Marine Accident Investigation Branch’s (MAIB) annual report reveals.

All of the Scottish victims were killed in separate incidents.

Three of the other five fatalities all occurred in the loss of the Nicola Faith in the area of Rhos-On-Sea, Conwy County, North Wales.

No seamen on UK-flagged merchant vessels lost their lives.

The report, by the MAIB’s chief inspector of marine accidents Captain Andrew Moll, found it was ‘unsurprising, but disappointing, that the most significant safety issues were, again, small fishing vessel stability and man overboard fatalities’.

Captian Moll said: ‘A lot of people are doing some very good work – but the evidence shows that the messages are not yet changing behaviours to a significant extent.’

During 2021, the MAIB raised 1,530 reports of marine accidents, an increase of more than 300 on the previous year, and carried out 22 investigations, a rise from 19 in 2020.