THEY are at the forefront of every major investigation involving a British vessel.

From the smallest yacht to the biggest container ship, the Hampshire-based Maritime Accident and Investigation Branch (MAIB) is tasked with finding out what has gone wrong out at sea – and working out how to stop it happening again.

This week the team, based in Southampton, is undertaking one of its biggest investigations ever to find out what went wrong on the Hoegh Osaka.

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Formed in 1989, the MAIB deals with any maritime disaster or incident in UK waters, and incidents involving British vessels elsewhere in the world, having worked as far away as the East China Sea.

Over the past two decades they have dealt with major disasters, such as the huge oil spill caused by the container Sea Empress when she became grounded on rocks near to Milford Haven.

They also looked at the fire on board the Commodore Clipper ferry in 2011, when it was on its way from Jersey to Portsmouth.

And they are continuing to investigate what happened to the Cheeky Rafiki yacht, which disappeared in the Atlantic last year with its crew – including Hampshire sailor James Male (see below) – lost at sea.

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Daily Echo:

Captain Andrew Moll, the MAIB’s deputy chief inspector of marine accidents, says the MAIB is ready to launch an investigation within hours of knowing about an incident.

He said: “Every investigation is different but time is always very important.

“We have a team at two hours’ notice to move anywhere in the world as quickly as they can.”

He said there are two reasons speed is so vital – evidence can disappear or decay, while witnesses’ memories of the incident may become “contaminated” and cloud their account of what happened.

Captain Moll continued: “We will do as much research as possible beforehand, and other people will gather it when the inspectors are travelling.

“Having got there we will start gathering facts and interviewing participants and witnesses to see how and why it happened.

“It’s always important that we try to get instructions there to try and preserve the scene.

“For example, if a vessel’s anchor chain is rusting away, then that evidence could be contaminated if someone just opens it up to look at it and lets more oxygen in from the atmosphere.

“We gather as much as we can on site, which could take days or a week.

“With the example of the Hoegh Osaka, we are working around the managers of the ship until it’s safe to get on the vessel, because there’s a salvage operation going on and the last thing we want to do is interfere with them.”

Working on listing, capsized or damaged vessels can be very dangerous, so inspectors have to constantly assess the risks of working.

Captain Moll said: “We need to be very careful. It could be a dangerous situation working on a vessel, and that’s one of the reasons we are sitting back at the moment in the Solent because it’s not safe for us to go in.”

Once as much information has been gathered from the scene of the investigation, the next step of the process begins.

The team will try to piece together what happened, with experts digging through other information to see whether there were any defects or known issue at the location.

Sometimes evidence is sent away for analysis, such as tension examining at a laboratory or electrical faults which could be dealt with at the MAIB.

The investigation can take months to complete, but MAIB will then be able to publish a report containing conclusions to stop the incident happening again.

Captain Moll added: “We work on the principle that a recommendation to prevent a further accident has to be made – there’s no point in us sitting in our ivory tower making a recommendation which for practical considerations will never happen.

“We will sit around a table with other stake-holders and hopefully come up with some re-commendations to stop it occurring again.”