Catalogue description Fishing Vessel Gaul Re-opened Formal Investigation Website

Please see information at Divisional level.

In February 1974, the Hull-based stern trawler FV Gaul was lost with all of her 36 crew members in very bad weather conditions in Arctic waters, north of Norway, Apart from a lifebuoy, recovered from the sea in May 1974, a part of one of the Gaul's life-raft containers and part of the plastic cover of the Gaul's boat, both trawled up in 1977, no wreckage was found or positively identified until 1997. This discovery prompted the Deputy Prime Minister, and Hull East MP, John Prescott, to ask the Department for Transport's Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) to carry out extensive surveys of the wreck, which it did in 1998 and 2002. From its findings the MAIB said there was enough new evidence to warrant a new inquiry.

This website was established to provide information regarding the Re-opened Formal Investigation (RFI). The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, opened the RFI on 13 January 2004 at Europa House, Hull, before the Wreck Commissioner, Mr Justice David Steel.

A one-off crawl was undertaken of this website in 2010. As the site had been dormant since 2005 the decision was made not to undertake any further crawls.