Silver Condor: A Record Catch, an Outdated Stability Booklet, and Three Deckhands Who Never Made It Back

A Good Trip, Right Up Until It Wasn't

Silver Condor left Blanc-Sablon, Quebec, on 21 September 2023 with six people aboard – a skipper, a mate, three deckhands, and a fisheries observer – for an experimental redfish licence south of Harrington Harbour. By 24 September the trip was going well: pens filled with redfish, a healthy incidental catch secured on the main deck. Fishing wrapped up around 1630. At 2000, everyone except the skipper turned in to rest. The skipper stayed at the helm alone for the run home.

A Booklet Built for a Different Fishery

Silver Condor's stability booklet had been developed for the vessel's usual shrimp and crab operations. It was never reassessed when the vessel picked up the experimental redfish licence – a different catch, stowed differently, with different weight and free-surface characteristics. Nobody on board had reason to think the rules had changed. The estimated 36 tonnes of redfish now aboard was 62% over the booklet's stated maximum load of 22.68 tonnes.

Midnight, Rolling, and Water Where It Shouldn't Be

Northeasterly winds had built to 23 knots, seas to 2–3 metres. Just after midnight on 25 September, the vessel began listing to port and settling by the stern as the rolling motion increased. Water could be heard splashing through the galley window. The overloaded vessel, its freeboard and reserve buoyancy already reduced by the excess catch, had no margin left against the deteriorating sea state. By 0230 it had sunk, at position 50°34.13′ N, 58°36.51′ W.

A Life Raft Nobody Could Reach

The vessel carried a 7-person life raft with a hydrostatic release unit, positioned aft of the wheelhouse – but overhead fishing gear made it inaccessible when the crew needed it. In the dark, with the vessel going down, it couldn't be located. It was never deployed, and was recovered eight days later, empty, wherever the sea had taken it. Six life jackets and eight immersion suits (seven vessel-issued, one the observer's own) were the only equipment anyone actually got their hands on.

Four Hours, Ten Degrees, and the Difference a Zip Makes

The EPIRB released automatically and began transmitting at 0230, triggering search and rescue. All six people were recovered from the water between 0639 and 0716 – roughly four hours after the sinking, in water measured at 10°C. Two crew and the observer had fully donned their immersion suits. Two more had partially donned theirs – hoods not deployed, zippers not fully closed. One had only a life jacket. The skipper (partial suit), one deckhand (life jacket only), and a second deckhand (partial suit) died of hypothermia and were declared dead at hospital in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador. The mate, a third deckhand (who also suffered a broken hand), and the observer – all with suits properly and fully donned – survived.

What the Investigation Found

TSB's investigation identified a chain of compounding factors, not one single cause: the stability booklet mismatch and 62% overload as the trigger; a life raft rendered unreachable by gear stowage; incomplete immersion suit donning that turned survivable cold-water immersion into fatal hypothermia for three of six people; a Mayday call that couldn't be received due to patchy shore-based VHF coverage with no other vessel nearby to relay it; and uncertainty over whether the VHF-DSC unit's MMSI programming or distress button had been used at all. The emergency also struck during the crew's circadian low (roughly 0230–0600) after days of disrupted sleep from earlier trawl door malfunctions extending working hours – a fatigue window TSB says increases the risk of exactly this kind of degraded decision-making. Investigators also found the vessel's Transport Canada safety inspection certificate had expired on 30 May 2023 and was never renewed before the experimental licence was granted in August, and that the skipper – who was medically restricted from keeping watch alone – was doing exactly that at the time of the sinking, contrary to Marine Personnel Regulations requiring a certified watchkeeper plus one other crew member during darkness.

Recommended Actions

Drawn from TSB's findings and its ongoing Watchlist issues on Commercial Fishing Safety and Fatigue Management in Marine Transportation:

1. Reassess and update the stability booklet whenever a vessel's fishery, licence, or gear type changes – a booklet built for shrimp and crab does not describe safe limits for a different catch.
2. Route life raft stowage and launch access clear of gear at all times, and check that specifically before every trip – not just at annual survey.
3. Drill full immersion suit donning – zip closed, hood deployed – until it's automatic, so it holds up under real darkness and real panic, not just in daylight training.
4. Confirm VHF-DSC is programmed with the vessel's MMSI and that crew know how to activate the distress button; don't rely on a voice Mayday alone in an area of patchy shore coverage.
5. Follow Marine Personnel Regulations watchkeeping minimums in darkness without exception – a certified watchkeeper plus one other crew member, never one person alone, especially where that person is medically restricted from solo watchkeeping.
6. Treat a gear failure that extends the working day as a fatigue trigger, not just a delay – build in recovery rest before resuming full operations, and keep a written fatigue management plan aboard even on vessels under 100 GT.

Human Element Analysis

Cross-Industry Parallels

Try the Decision Simulator

You're the skipper, the catch is good, and the booklet says one thing while the fish hold says another. Do you check the numbers, or trust that it's fine because it's always been fine? Play through the real decision points and see which ending you land on.

Test Your Knowledge

Think you've got this covered? Put it to the test in Crew Connect's free Knowledge Checker — try a quick safety round and see how you score.

Related Reading

• Seacon Oslo – another case where a task felt too routine to trigger the safety procedure written for exactly that task
• Svanoy – this week's other featured incident, a ferry and a pleasure craft in fog