Acting Marine Superintendent testifies no reason existed to ground MV Barima despite deficiencies

Acting Marine Superintendent for Guyana’s Maritime Administration Department (MARAD) Christopher Bailey, who conducted a “detailed” inspection of the 87-year-old MV Barima before it sank off the Essequibo Coast, testified today that there was no reason to ground the vessel, though flagging a number of safety deficiencies in November 2025.

Appearing before the five-member Commission of Inquiry (COI), Bailey testified that he conducted a visual inspection of the MV Barima ferry in November, 2025 as part of the vessel’s annual inspection.

It was during that inspection that the vessel’s radar was found to be out of service. Additionally, the vessel had no Automatic Identification System (AIS), which is a tracking system used to broadcast and receive real-time navigational, static and voyage data between ships, coastal stations and satellites.

“There was a radar onboard, the radar was tested and found to be not operational. A GPS was onboard, the GPS was tested, was found to be operational. Bridge controls were tested and found to be operational at the time of inspection. There was no AIS on board the vessel at the time. Also, there were paper charts on board, and there was also a VHF radio,” Bailey told the Commission.

The Commission also heard that at the time of the inspection, the vessel had no emergency flares within the bridge, though an emergency beacon was seen. The vessel had both life rings and life rafts, but according to Bailey, the rafts were also out of service.

“The life rings seem to be in good order. The life rafts were identified, and on inspecting the SOLAS stickers on the raft, it was found to be out of its service date,” he testified.

Bailey told the Commission that he was unable to thoroughly inspect the rafts but said from his visual inspection, their casings had no crafts or abrasions. The passenger deck, according to Bailey, was also inspected, where some 200 lifejackets were individually inspected.

Though during a meeting with the Commissioners, survivors indicated that the lifejackets were locked away, Bailey said when the inspection was conducted almost a year ago, the lifejackets were easily accessible.

At the time of the inspection, the vessel had a single engine and two generators, one of which was under maintenance. But though, Commissioner Hayden Pritchard expressed concern that the vessel was operating with a single engine, Bailey said, in his opinion, there was nothing abnormal about that, explaining that some vessels operate with a single engine, while others operate with two or more.

While Bailey flagged a number of deficiencies with the vessel in his inspection report, he said there were not sufficient reasons to ground the vessel based on the safety inspection done. According to him, structurally, the vessel was “fine.”

“It was a visual inspection. Above waterline, structurally she seemed fine to me. I didn’t conduct a survey on the vessel, she was there, she was afloat. When I went down to the engine room there were no water, no pumps were running. Structurally, she seemed fine to me,” Bailey explained.

According to him, the hull, deck, shell and cargo compartment were in “fair condition.”

Commissioner Hamada Fouda – a maritime specialist from Jamaica – said the safety deficiencies, including the defective rafts, ought to have been corrected before the vessel was allowed to set sail Bailey clarified that at the time of the inspection, the vessel’s generator was undergoing maintenance and was therefore not in operation. However, there was no indication that deficiencies were addressed before MV Barima set sail.

Bailey explained that the inspection was not mandatory, but was done as part of MARAD’s safety obligations.

Bailey had previously appeared before the Commission in October during the first round of public hearings. Then he testified that the Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) that sent multiple alerts to the authorities indicating that a vessel was in distress on July 18, was recovered by him hours after the MV Barima sank off the Essequibo Coast.

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