The crew has previously said that the grounding is due to the ship’s GPS being broken.
— At sea, you must never trust a sensor (gps) and you must always check that the equipment is showing correctly. You have to double check here. The commanders have not done that based on the information we have seen, says Reto Weber, technology lecturer at Chalmers’ Department of Mechanics and Maritime Sciences, to the newspaper.
Together with Chalmers unit manager Mats Gruvefeldt, he reacts to the contents of the Coast Guard’s investigation with questioning of the crew. Among other things, the experts believe that there is uncertainty about travel planning. The master has stated that the paper chart is the primary navigation aid, but according to the pilot, such planning in the paper chart has been missing. The experts believe that it can therefore be questioned whether the ship was seaworthy at all, since a trip planning must also be considered a risk assessment, which is required for a ship to be brought forward.
The passenger ferry Marco Polo ran aground on Sunday 22 October when it was on its way from Trelleborg to Karlshamn and then Lithuania. After an initial grounding in the Bay of Hanö, the leaking ship continued a few kilometers before hitting a new ground and getting stuck. On the same day, the oil reached land at Hörvik in Sölvesborg municipality. Since then, cleanup has been ongoing along the coast and at sea.
On Sunday, October 29, the ship slipped off the ground but soon got stuck on another. A new even bigger oil leak was a fact.
Now the ferry has been towed to Karlshamn and the Accident Commission is investigating the ground disturbance.
The coast guard has started a preliminary investigation into violations of the maritime law in connection with the accident.