Puffin patrols ‘not worth risk’
Wednesday 25th March 2009, 2:29PM GMT.
THE annual Puffin Patrols have been grounded because of the risk to Travel Trident’s business.
Company manager Peter Wilcox (pictured) said the decision to stop the trips was regrettable but a minor incident could render a ship’s captain unable to work for six months.
‘The boat has to go fairly close to the rocks, so it’s off the beaten track,’ he said. ‘If the skipper was involved in an accident because the boat had engine failure and it hit a rock, the penalty would be a minimum of a six-month suspension because it would have to be investigated,’ he said.
He said the loss of a skipper for six months would not be commercially viable.
‘If we were making lots and lots of money as a result of the trips then we might have said it was worth the risk, but it just takes something to go wrong and you question why you were doing it.’
The RSPB Guernsey branch has been organising the May-July patrols since the mid-1980s.
It was an opportunity to see a variety of seabirds close up around the cliffs of Herm and Guernsey.
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Another attraction gone then…. You might as well put ‘Guernsey Closed’ at the arrival halls at the airport and harbour
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Jon
Do you drive ? If so how would you feel if after clipping a hedge or wall you were suspended from driving for 6 months until the Police investigated ?
It’s disappointing I know but I understand Travel Trident’s reasoning behind their desicion.
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I seem to remember that Trident ran into rocks a few years ago in the dark, and when there was fog about, so I would assume that these new rules are going to curtail a lot of their sailings from now on.
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