KINGSTON, Jamaica, Mar 20, CMC – The 57-year-old captain of a boat that sank in December last year resulting in the death of two people, has been fined J$400 (One Jamaica dollar=US$0.008 cents) after he pleaded guilty in court this week to four charges under the 1971 Harbours Act.
Police said that Hurbert Dowie, who appeared in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court on Monday, was in charge of the small boat with 12 passengers that capsized as it made its way from Port Royal to Lime Cay, one of the small cays to the south of here.
He was charged with failing to comply with the load line; failing to keep bilge free of water; operating an unlicensed vessel; and having more persons in the vessel.
Dowie was transporting the passengers from Port Royal to Lime Cay when the vessel reportedly developed issues due to poor weather conditions and capsized, killing two women.
The authorities have since identified the two women killed as 35-year-old Janelle Decasseres and 45-year-old Edith Petscha.
Lieutenant Aceion Prescott of the Marine Division of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), had said the JDF had been able to rescue people, some of whom were swimming to shore, soon after the incident on December 27 last year.
J$400 is nothing for two lives!