Alone on the Quay: The Cover-Up That Meant Cherry Sand's Fatal Crush Happened Twice

Alone at the Rail

On 28 February 2019, the trailing suction hopper dredger Cherry Sand arrived at Port Babcock Rosyth on the Firth of Forth. The temporary master, aged 72, was conducting the mooring operation single-handed — acting as a one-man crew for a task that ordinarily calls for more than one person. During the mooring, he became trapped between the vessel's hull and the quay and sustained fatal crushing injuries.

A Second Time, Because the First Was Never Reported

MAIB's investigation uncovered something more troubling than a single tragic accident: a previous, similar crushing incident had already happened on this vessel. It had not been reported to the company or to the authorities. No lessons were drawn from it, no procedure was changed, and no one outside the immediate circumstances of that earlier event knew it had happened at all — until the same hazard killed someone.

No One There to Stop It

A one-man mooring operation removes the one thing that could have changed this outcome: a second person able to see what's happening and stop the vessel's movement the moment something goes wrong. At 72, mooring alone, there was no one to intervene when the master became trapped. MAIB found no system in place to ensure safe minimum manning for mooring operations on Cherry Sand, and no process that would have flagged a temporary master's fitness for a physically demanding task as something to actively assess.

Recommended Actions

1. Establish minimum crew requirements for mooring operations and prohibit single-handed mooring on all vessels of this type (Rec 2020/118).
2. Implement a just culture reporting framework that explicitly protects crew members who report accidents and near-misses from punitive consequences (Rec 2020/119).

Human Element Analysis