What Kind of Vessel Was The Ghost Boat?

Without a photograph, firsthand description, or port log, knowing the precise type of vessel that went missing will be difficult. But we do have one crucial clue to the question of vessel type: a passenger count of 243. By looking at which types of vessels made the same crossing in the last two years, and cross-referencing that with the number of passengers, we can whittle away at this question at least a bit.

I took the Missing Migrants Project’s data about incidents in 2014 and 2015 and filtered it by route — eliminating everything but voyages setting out from Libya or Tunisia and heading for Italy or southern Europe. This brought up around 100 entries, which is an incomplete number but enough of a sample size to start to see patterns between vessel type and passenger counts.

By going through news reports of these incidents, I picked out vessel descriptions and passenger counts, when available. Unfortunately, more than two-thirds of the news reports did not mention vessel type or size — as which, as we journalists continue to report on this crisis, is something we should begin to focus more on. (Note to self!) I connected vessel type to passenger count in a spreadsheet, which you can check out here. (Given the paucity of vessel descriptions, only 28 reports so far are included, but I’ll continue to update this list as I keep digging.) Here are a few takeaways:

• There are two main types of vessels making this crossing: rubber inflatable dinghies and larger fishing boats.
• Dinghies tend to carry between 75 and 140 passengers. This high end is often twice as much as recommended, but numbers over 140 are rare for inflatable dinghies.
• Malfunctions on dinghies are typically due to either deflation or motor trouble (the former is more deadly).
• Fishing boats (referred to as trawlers at times) have a much higher passenger capacity — ranging from 350 to 800 migrants.
• These vessels often capsize, tragically, just as a coast guard or merchant ship is coming to the rescue; hundreds of passengers shifting their weight and scrambling to get to the side of the ship can tip one side.
• A common theme is that smugglers often use one larger boat, and one smaller boat accompanying it, presumably as overflow.

A quick glance at the numbers shows that, unfortunately, the passenger occupancy of the Ghost Boat puts it right in between the averages for dinghies and fishing vessels.

However, although this is speculation, by the patterns of other ships, it seems that 243 is a small number of passengers than most smugglers would put on a fishing vessel. I’ll keep updating the data to get a better sense of this trend, but on a first pass, I’d say we’re not looking for a large, multi-story fishing trawler.

That leaves the dinghy problem. Two hundred forty-three is too many passengers for one inflatable dinghy, even given smugglers’ liberal interpretation of carrying capacity. But one thing stands out: 243 people would fit perfectly onto two rubber dinghies, given the fact that smugglers often put 120 onto one. Since smugglers are known to use two boats, my initial conclusion is that we’re looking for two inflatable dinghies.

This would obviously have implications for the passengers: dinghies are far less stable than fishing vessels in bad weather, and deflation seems fairly common.

As I go through more news reports, I’ll update the data above to include more vessel descriptions and passenger counts.