Drink driving style laws for boat users urged

THE introduction of drink-driving style legislation for boat users is unlikely despite being one of the main recommendations in a report by the Marine Casualty Investigation Board.

The MCIB has urged the Government to introduce similar controls to those which exist for motorists, including the use of breathalysers to limit the consumption of alcohol by people in charge of vessels and the setting of maximum blood alcohol levels for seafarers on duty.

However, a Government source said yesterday that implementation of such measures “would present a range of difficulties, both practical and legal”.

“The monitoring of people in charge of boats is quite different to people driving cars,” said one senior official.

The proposal is one of the recommendations contained in the board’s report into a collision between a yacht and a cargo vessel in Dublin Bay in the early hours of May 20, 2001, in which four lives were lost.

The accident occurred when the 30ft yacht, Debonair, was returning from St Patrick’s weekend celebrations in Dublin to Malahide. During the journey, the yacht suddenly altered course, bringing it across the path of the larger vessel, Blackbird, at the entrance to Dublin Port.

All four victims were aboard the Debonair. They were Mark Styles, 39, from Knocklyon Close, Knocklyon; his brother, Glen Styles, 42, from Churchview Rd, Killiney; Eleanor Cullen, 43, from Kerrywood Rise, Foxrock, and Rowan Smith, 47, from Hazelbrook Rd, Terenure. There was one survivor, Philip Daley, 46, from Limekiln, Greenhills, who was on the deck of the Debonair at the time of the collision.

However, the report said it was not possible to draw any conclusions from Mr Daly’s statement as to why the Debonair had altered its course before the accident.

An inquest held into the accident in 2002 revealed that Glen Styles, who was at the helm of the Debonair at the time of the collision, had almost twice the drink-driving limit of alcohol in his system.

The MCIB concluded that Mr Styles was not monitoring the steering use of the yacht. It claimed one of the possible reasons for this was the fact that he and the other three victims all were “moderately intoxicated by alcohol” at the time of the collision.

As a result, it has asked the Government to consider developing legislation which would set a blood alcohol limit for people on watch duty on board vessels. It suggested the same level of 80 mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood as currently exists for road-users.

Other recommendations include the holding of regular meetings between all port authorities and sailing club officials to discuss and monitor safety issues.