Mr. Justin Delaney:

For stability works for fishing vessels, the criteria they must pass relate to the different loading conditions of the vessels when they are fishing. Mr. Gaffney would not have picked this up while he sailed the vessel home from Holland because he was not fishing the vessel. These beam trawlers have two big heavy nets that they throw from each side of the vessel. When they lift up the gear, the gear is so heavy that sometimes one set of gear can roll over to the other side of the vessel. That is why these beam trawlers need more stability than any other type of fishing vessel. The Bay of Biscay and the North Sea can be very unforgiving also. For vessels working in the Irish Sea, beam trawlers especially, when the gear gets caught on the bottom that is when we see how unstable a vessel will be. Even a stable vessel can become very unstable due to what happens during the operation. It is unforgivable to let a vessel, especially a beam trawler that has been supposedly passed as seaworthy but has totally deficient stability, go out into the world for fishermen to operate.