The paperwork landed on two desks this week: one at the Harbour Authority Board, one at the Council Maritime Affairs Committee. The resolution from the Fishermen’s Benevolent Association — passed unanimously on 12 March by forty-seven vessel masters at Harbourfront Mission Hall — is now formally in the system.

It asks for one thing: mandatory position-reporting beacons on all vessels under twenty metres operating from Bobington harbour. Approximately ninety boats. Equipment cost of 180 to 260 florins per unit, or between 16,000 and 23,000 florins for the entire fleet.

“That is the cost of knowing where your people are,” said Wilfred Poole, the Association’s secretary, who delivered the documents in person on Friday. “It is not a complicated question.”

The Background

The push for mandatory beacons predates the Lady Maren incident but was transformed by it. Captain Dermot Shale’s trawler went eighteen hours overdue on 9 March with a fractured crankshaft and a broken radio aerial. The coastguard cutter Resolute found the vessel drifting nineteen nautical miles northeast of the harbour mouth, with all four crew alive but without any means of signalling their position.

Shale, who spoke at the Association’s emergency meeting, put it simply: “That is not a safety system. That is luck.”

The resolution includes two bulk-purchase quotes: one from Harland Maritime Instruments of Port Caravel, one from Ashwater Signal Works here in Bobington. Both firms have indicated willingness to offer fleet pricing if the order is placed as a single lot.

The Politics

Harbour Master Cornelius Ashby has been publicly supportive since attending the Association meeting on 12 March, but the regulatory path is not straightforward. The Harbour Authority Board can mandate equipment requirements for vessels operating under harbour licence — but the Council Maritime Affairs Committee must approve any expenditure from the maritime safety fund, which currently stands at approximately 41,000 florins.

If the fleet-wide cost falls at the upper end of estimates, the fund would be insufficient. The shortfall would require either a supplementary council allocation or a vessel-owner contribution scheme.

Dr Willa Greaves, a marine safety specialist who sits on the Authority Board, said she expected the discussion to be “brisk and unanimous in principle, with the detail taking longer.”

“Nobody in that room will argue against beacons,” she said. “The question is who pays, and how quickly.”

The Board meets Tuesday. The Council committee meets Thursday, the same day as the fifth Kaelmar session — a coincidence of scheduling that means maritime safety will dominate Chancery Row from both directions.

Owen Pritchard, the retired trawlerman who spoke at the Association meeting about his nephew Daniel, lost at sea in 1994, said he planned to attend the Board meeting.

“I’ve been asking for this for thirty years,” he said. “I’ll sit in that room as long as it takes.”