When Bruce D. MacBain heard Laura Gainey had been swept off the tall ship Picton Castle into the North Atlantic, it brought back memories of his own similar brush with disaster aboard the three-masted training vessel.

The professional mariner gave his account to the Canadian Press, saying he believes safety policies should be changed on the vessel to help prevent man-overboard incidents like the one that took the daughter of Bob Gainey, general manager of the Montreal Canadiens hockey club.

Gainey was lost at sea on the night of Dec. 8, 2006, when she walked onto a rear deck during a storm and a large wave swept her into the ocean.

Like Gainey, MacBain wasn't wearing a life-jacket or a tether in another incident, months earlier, when he says the Atlantic Ocean swept across a rear deck, knocking him down and blowing him into the scuppers — the holes in the ship's side that carry water overboard.

MacBain, now a licensed captain of 100-tonne vessels in the United States, said in an interview the tall ship Picton Castle should have had a standing order for crew to don life-jackets and lifelines in harsh weather.

The 58-year-old recently wrote in a Florida yachting publication The Triton-Megayacht News, "as in Laura's case, all it would have taken was an unpredictable wave and any one of us could have been taken to the deep."

Daniel Moreland, the senior captain of the vessel, declined to comment, but in the days after the accident he acknowledged that Gainey was not wearing a life-jacket nor was she tethered to the ship.

A spokeswoman for the Windward Isles Sailing Ship Company, which runs the Picton Castle, also declined to comment.

The owner of a computer software firm in Kansas City for more than 20 years, MacBain had taken the voyage to improve his sailing skills, and gain sea hours to begin a new career as a mariner.

He was moving from the galley onto the rear deck last spring when the vessel encountered a storm off of Namibia that he says created seas of nine metres.

"It was never stated to me in writing or verbally that in a certain period we would wear life-jackets, or that we would be tethered," he said in an interview about his trip on the Picton Castle.

MacBain praised Moreland as a captain but said changes must be made.

"He's a very fine, and very concerned, competent captain, but I think that a standard policy should be set on all vessels that are at sea that at a certain juncture, a certain point, these tethers or life-jackets should be worn and people should be secured to the boat," he added.

"I'm hopeful that the insurance company will be proactive in talking with Windward Isles Sailing Ship Company, the company that runs the Picton Castle, and state,`You're going to have to do this."'

Little has been said about the accident or the safety issues arising from Gainey's loss since an investigation started in the Cook Islands, a small island nation in the South Pacific where the vessel is registered.

Andrew Scheer, the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., consultant hired to conduct the investigation, has declined to comment on any aspect of the inquiry.

Aukino Tairea, the Cook Island's transport secretary, said in a recent interview that he expects to receive the report on the accident shortly.

In an interview after Gainey was swept into the sea, Moreland said life-jackets and lifelines usually weren't necessary.

"We wouldn't normally wear those, even in fairly rough weather. We have the ship equipped with up-to-date survival suits, but you don't normally wear them, and you certainly don't wear life-jackets," he said.

"She's got very high rails, and 10 years of sailing, we've never had anybody get swept off the ship, or remotely close to it."

At the time, he also confirmed gales had been expected when the vessel departed Lunenburg for Grenada on the afternoon of Dec. 5.

High seas weather forecasts by the United States National Weather Service on the morning of Dec. 7 called for "hurricane force wind warning," due to a second low pressure system moving into the vicinity of the Gulf Stream.

In January, Moreland told the Associated Press that Gainey had been ordered to stay below deck during the storm.

"She had been ordered to go below, and moments later, the incident happened," he was quoted as saying at the time.

Gainey, 25, was lost at about 9:30 p.m. in winds that were reported to be over 80 kilometres per hour, with seven-metre waves crashing against the steel-hulled, 60-metre vessel.

For MacBain, such weather is one of the reasons for a standing order to be in place for all sailors.

"If there was weather coming up and I had people on deck you bet your booty I'd have them tethered in," he said.