SHE IS very frail now and, aged 88, knows her time is limited. But what worries Mary Nicol is not so much the prospect of her own death, but going to the grave without ever knowing why her husband died.
George Nicol was one of seven fishermen who drowned 30 years ago when the Trident, a Peterhead trawler described as the "pride of the Scottish fleet", sank on its way back to its home port.
It is a tragedy that has befallen countless families thr
ough the generations. But the Trident families say their torment has been made worse by bureaucratic wrangling.
Officials raised the hopes of relatives two years ago by finally agreeing to conduct a full inquiry, but have since failed to deliver on their promise by allowing the project to become bogged down in red tape.
The wreck of the Trident was discovered unexpectedly in 2001, lying 180ft down in the Pentland Firth, the wild body of water that separates Orkney from the mainland.
The find led the government to agree the following year to inspect the wreck in a bid to find the cause of the tragedy. Last week, however, it was revealed the inspection had been put back because of a wrangle over the diving contract.
Mary’s daughter Jeannie Ritchie, spokeswoman for the Trident relatives, said: "This is typical of what has been happening and probably means the dive will not go ahead this summer as planned. There is only a narrow window of opportunity in which divers can operate at that depth in the Pentland Firth."
Ritchie, who lost her husband, Alex, in the sinking, added: "The problem is the longer it drags on the older my mother is getting. She does not want to go to her grave not knowing what really happened."
The relatives’ group will meet this week in the north-east port to decide their next step. Barry Tindall, the solicitor advising the group, said he had been informed that the tenders for the contract to carry out the inspection had to be reissued because the firms competing for the work had not been given sufficient detail.
"I am beginning to doubt that the dive will now be carried out this year," Tindall said. "Even if it is, it will be next year before the inquiry starts, and if it isn’t we are talking about 2006."
The 86ft-Trident, which was only 18 months old, disappeared off the coast of Caithness on October 3, 1974, on its way back from the west coast herring grounds for an end-of-season overhaul.
The families have never been satisfied with the findings of an official inquiry a year later, which decided that the boat was swamped by a huge wave.
They claim the boat sank not because of bad weather but because she was inherently unstable.
Efforts to get to the bottom of the mystery were hampered for more than a quarter of a century because the wreck could not be found in the deep waters of the Firth.
It was only discovered by chance in 2001 by a diving party searching for the wreck of a naval destroyer sunk by a U-boat during World War Two.
The trawler was lying on its side and embedded in the seabed but still clearly identifiable from its Peterhead registration number. The divers who found it said there was a surprising lack of damage to the boat, a condition inconsistent with being struck by a large body of water.
The responsibility for holding a new inquiry was handed over to the Advocate General of Scotland, Lynda Clark, with a recommendation from marine accident experts that a new survey of the wreck should be carried out.
But although the new survey was not carried out in the summer of 2002 - as the families had expected - they were told it would go ahead the following year. That timetable also slipped amid wrangles over the extent of the survey, with the Advocate General’s office now saying it would take place in the summer of 2004.
Although two diving companies have submitted tenders for the contract, they have now been told that further work is required.
"Quite frankly it looks as if this year is away too," said Ritchie, who lost her husband at the age of 34. "I really don’t know how much more of this the families can take.
"I sometimes wonder if they are hoping that we will just give up and go away and save them the bother.
"My mother is 88 now and wants a conclusion to this in her lifetime. The children and the grandchildren also want to know why these men lost their lives in a boat that was unstable and should never have been allowed out to sea."
The families have the support of Alex Salmond, the Banff and Buchan SNP MP who campaigned for the inquiry. Salmond said further delay in carrying out the survey was "inexcusable".
"It is important for all concerned to realise that the families have not just been waiting two years for an inquiry but for more than a quarter of a century. Peace of mind can only come from a full examination of the reasons why the Trident sank. We also need to get to the bottom of whether this particular design was unstable."
Suspicions about the boat’s seaworthiness were aroused when it emerged at the original inquiry that the Trident did not undergo stability tests before it was approved as safe by the government’s former White Fish Authority. An investigation by the government’s Marine Accident Investigation Board after the Trident was found discovered that its sister ship had been immediately recalled to port and had undergone extensive modifications before being given a safety certificate.
But the official finding that the Trident probably foundered after taking aboard "a sea or succession of seas" has remained unchallenged until now.
A spokeswoman for Clark said
the reason why the survey had not yet been carried out was because of the detailed discussions between all parties that had to take place.
She confirmed that there would now be further delay. "Further specification is being given to the tenderers and they will be asked to resubmit their bids in the light of this."
The full article contains 1089 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
