Photo/Illutration The Kazu I tour boat in Shari, Hokkaido, on May 26 after it was raised from the seabed (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Crew members guided the Kazu I tour boat into dangerous waters that poured through a flawed hatch on the deck and caused the vessel to sink in Hokkaido in April, investigators said.

In a report released on Dec. 15, the Japan Transport Safety Board, which has analyzed the salvaged vessel, tried to explain what likely occurred in the disaster that left 24 passengers and two crew members either dead or missing.

The boat left from the Utoro fishing port in Shari around 10 a.m. for a three-hour tour along the Shiretoko Peninsula in eastern Hokkaido on April 23.

It sank at a point near Kahuni Falls, about 14 kilometers southwest of Cape Shiretoko, while it was heading back to Utoro port.

The report disclosed records of a mobile phone conversation between a passenger and a relative between 1:21 p.m. and 1:26 p.m. It was the last communication from the boat that investigators could confirm.

“The boat is taking on water, and it is now up to my feet,” the passenger said in the call. “It’s impossible to swim in this water; it’s way too cold. I can’t jump into (the sea), either.”

Waves near Cape Shiretoko were estimated at more than 1 meter high, but they reached in excess of 2 meters high near Kashuni Falls, according to the report.

The report noted the Kazu I was built only for voyages in gentler seas.

“Moving ahead would become extremely difficult for this vessel in waves of more than 1 meter,” said a board official who was involved in the investigation. “If the crew had been able to think more calmly, they would have known the waves would get higher and higher if they tried to return to the original port.

“The crew should have gone to a harbor of refuge near Cape Shiretoko to take shelter.”

The report said an attachment that fastens the cover to the hatch was worn out. As a result, the hatch was “presumably not tightly closed.”

As the boat continued rolling in the rough waves, the hatch’s cover opened, “allowing a huge amount of seawater to flood the bow compartment,” the report said.

The cover eventually was ripped off the hatch and smashed a glass window in the passengers’ compartment, resulting in the inundation of the cabin, the report said.

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