The head of Pandaw River Expeditions is blaming a freelance
tour guide for turning a "minor" accident on India's Ganges River into a panic.
Responding to reports
last week from a journalist who was onboard the Kinat Pandaw when it hit a
bridge on the Upper Ganges, Pandaw founder Paul Strachan said the guide overreacted by ordering an evacuation.
"This should have been the master's decision not the
guide's," he wrote in a blog. "It could be argued that this was a correct precautionary measure, but it was a
complete overreaction. It caused considerable distress for the passengers. For
this we can only apologize. What was a relatively minor incident quickly became
a drama. We are really sorry that the passengers had this experience."
Strachan said that an investigation found that the ship
accidentally bumped into a floating bridge that was about to be opened to allow
the ship passage.
He said the collision punched about an 8-inch gash in the
hull, which allowed a “very small amount of water” to enter the sealed hull
compartment. But he said the company's ships are designed to cope with such
accidents and have bilge pumps and water-tight bulkheads.
"Collisions on busy waterways do occasionally happen,
usually with other vessels, and crew can temporarily patch any hole in a moment
using patch kits we carry on our ships,” he said.
Strachan also noted that Pandaw’s itineraries, which include
sailings on remote rivers in Myanmar and Cambodia, are "not like cruising on
the Rhine or Rhone, waterways with controlled flows and regulated levels."
"These are extreme rivers," he wrote. "These are intended to
be adventurous. It is what we do."
He said the company is upfront with warnings about potential
groundings and other challenges, challenges that he said offer the excitement
that return Pandaw passengers "relish."
Still, Strachan said the company is working with its Indian
partners to improve crew training "to ensure such a panic does not happen again
and that there is a clear chain of command."
He said the company is also revising its Upper Ganges
itinerary to avoid the section with pontoon bridges.