Bahamas Maritime Authority Report on Surveyor’s Drowning During Boat Transfer
The Bahamas Maritime Authority (BMA) has released an investigation report into the death of a bunker surveyor who fell into the sea during a transfer from a Bahamas-flagged bulk carrier to a service boat. The accident happened at about 19:30 local time on 17 January 2026 while the ship was anchored at Singapore’s Eastern Bunkering C anchorage, in Singapore’s port waters at the eastern end of the Singapore Strait.
The ship was in ballast with a freeboard of about 14.8 metres and was preparing for bunkering, hull cleaning, provisioning and a crew change. A diving barge and an approaching bunker barge limited the transfer options, so the crew rigged the starboard accommodation ladder. At the surveyor’s request, the outboard stanchion was removed. As he stepped across, the pitching service boat moved, he lost his footing and clung to its fenders. The boat’s two crew could not pull him aboard, and he fell into the water. His lifejacket inflated but came off because it was not properly secured.
From the CrewMirror Blog
A deckhand and nearby divers tried to help, but the boat had no proper man-overboard recovery equipment. The Singapore Police Coast Guard recovered him at about 20:00, and he was declared dead in hospital at 21:13. The cause was drowning.
The BMA found that overlapping operations put the crew under time pressure, no responsible officer was watching the transfer, and radio messages did not follow standard distress procedures, so the ship did not deploy its life-saving equipment. It recommends recovery gear on service boats, checks of that gear by Singapore’s port authority, and guidance on simultaneous operations. It follows an earlier BMA report on a seafarer’s fatal fall into a cargo hold, and adds to recent man-overboard cases covered on CrewMirror.
CrewMirror Takeaway
Every personnel transfer at anchor deserves the same care as a pilot transfer. Ship’s officers should assign someone to supervise each transfer, check that visitors’ lifejackets are properly fastened and keep a lifebuoy and recovery gear ready at the ladder, especially when several operations are running at once.
