The death last August of a woman from Belarus, mown down by an accellerating tourist boat as it left a cave at Padre Vincente beach, Carvoeiro, was due to unnecessary speed and lack of warning signals.The tourist boat was manned by only one crew member and as the boat sped away from shore, in the direction of the sun, its nose lifted making adequate forward vision impossible.
The boat failed to sound a warning as it left the cave and hit the woman whose body was retrieved by her husband who swam her back to shore. She was declared dead at the scene by an emergency medical team.
The boat had 12 tourists on board who all witnessed the tragedy, one of the holidaymakers said he had given repeated warnings to the skipper to “slow down.”
According to the Maritime Accident Investigation Office report, the 7-metre Róisín Alvor only had to have a helmsman, something the Maritime Authority will now assess as it is impossible to drive the boat and keep an adequate forward lookout at the same time.
The report states that the boat’s speed was "superior to what was strictly necessary for the government of the vessel" and the boat was accelerating after it left the cave, reaching an estimated 12 knots (22 km / h) when it hit the swimmer.
The vessel also was not yet perpendicular to the coastline, as the rules dictate, as it accelerated away from the cave at Parde Vincente beach, also known as Praia do Castelo beach.
The beach was not a supervised ‘concession’ beach, had it been the boat would not have been allowed closer than 300 metres to the shore.
The report in Correio da Manhã will trigger questions of corporate and personal culpability, tourist safety and the current laws that allow tourist boats to be commanded by one person.