#The Sarah May III is a Princess 55 motor cruiser owned and operated by James Grahame Paul Stronge. The vessel is coded under the code of Practice for the Safety of Small commercial Vessels to carry not more than twelve passengers and three crew according to a Maritime & Coastguard Agency statement released today.
On 28th January 2012, the Sarah May III was chartered for a days outing by the Northern Ireland Volunteers under a contract with Londonderry Council.
A report of overloading was made to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) and it was confirmed that the vessel had indeed sailed with twenty four persons onboard including twenty two passengers of whom four were children.
The MCA investigation revealed a number of shortcomings in the safety equipment onboard. There were 21 inflatable lifejackets, which require to be serviced annually. 17 were found not to have been serviced since 2008, some four years earlier.
The vessel was issued a detention notice on 8th February 2012 which prohibited sailing until all of the lifesaving appliances had be serviced. On 17th February 2012 while all of the life jackets and liferafts were ashore, the vessel sailed to Lough Swilly in neighbouring Republic of Ireland, breaching the detention notice.
At Londonderry Crown Court Mr Stronge pleaded guilty on 7th February 2013 to four charges:-
(1) Proceeding to sea with 22 passengers without Sarah May III being surveyed and inspected for a passenger ship certificate.
(2) Proceeding to sea on the 17th February 2012 in breach of a Detention Notice issued on 8th February 2012.
(3) Breach of Merchant Shipping Act 1995 section 100 by sailing with an excessive number of passengers 23 in total and 2 crew, and with insufficient number of lifejackets, 17 of which were outside their required service date and having liferaft space for only 16 persons in the two available liferafts, one of which was outside its service date.
(4) Mr Stronge made a false declaration to the Certifying authority MECAL with regard to the condition of the lifejackets and life rafts.
The trial was continued for statements by prosecution and defence on 7th March 2013 and the judge remanded Mr Stronge in custody pending a sentence hearing on 13th March 2013.
At the sentencing hearing at Londonderry Crown court on 13th March 2013 Mr Stronge was sentenced to 9 months in custody suspended for three years and fined a total of £1500.
His Honour, Judge Grant said;
"You should have been aware of the requirements. These safety requirements are made to mitigate disasters and risks. The public are entitled to expect equipment to be up to date. You are arrogant to assume nothing will happen, I view it as very serious, I recommend that the RYA suspend his certification.
Captain Bill Bennett Area Operations Manager (Survey and Inspection) Northern Ireland for the MCA stated that:-
This operator has previously pleaded guilty to carrying more than twelve passengers. His actions put the lives of all his passengers at risk. A Detention Notice is placed on a ship to prevent it from sailing in an unsafe condition and in the rare case of an owner breaching the terms of the Detention, the MCA will investigate and where appropriate persons will be prosecuted.