A long-awaited final report into the loss of Laura Gainey from a Nova Scotia tall ship questions the decision of the ship's masters to depart with approaching storms forecast, given the crew's "limited training" and experience.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has spent more than a year delving into how the 25-year-old daughter of Montreal Canadiens general manager Bob Gainey was swept off the port deck of the Picton Castle on Dec. 8, 2006, by a wave during a mid-Atlantic storm.

A source says many of the findings, scheduled to be released Thursday in Ottawa, echo what the board said in a safety letter last fall that crew should have been using safety harnesses, and that Gainey and other deckhands were tired because they were working in their off hours during the rising storm.

A passage from the final report read to The Canadian Press by the source also questions the decision to depart on Dec. 5, 2006, saying the vessel's managers "did not take into full consideration the available long-range forecasts indicating impending adverse weather, particularly given the limited training of the crew in emergencies and the limited experience of the trainees."

The ship's senior master and part owner, Daniel Moreland, has previously said the decision to leave was based on weather forecasts that showed favourable weather was expected for the voyage south to the Caribbean.

He has also stated that the departure date, which was set after several delays because of poor weather, was a rare window between the end of hurricane season and the beginning of harsher winter weather in the North Atlantic.

Moreland declined comment on Wednesday, adding that he would issue a statement on Thursday after the formal release of the transportation board's report.

The report suggests the ship's business plan may have played a role in the timing of the ship's departure.

The three-masted barque was travelling to the Caribbean, where a fresh group of trainees was to be signed on at various ports, while the group of 16 that boarded in Lunenburg, N.S., departed.

'Increased pressure to sail'

In addition, the vessel had a contract to be the main set in the television production of the reality television show Pirate Master.

"Given the financial benefit associated with proceeding with the voyage, there was increased pressure to sail," says a section of the report read to the Canadian Press.

The timing of the ship's departure is one of many findings in the report that are similar to a preliminary finding by Andy Scheer, a former captain in the U.S. navy who first investigated the accident for the Cook Islands, the South Pacific nation where the Picton Castle is registered.

The Cook Islands ordered an inquiry in December 2006 after the accident.

Scheer concluded that "the ship got underway in marginal weather conditions at a time of year when dangerous heavy weather is prevalent in the North Atlantic region." He added that "not enough heavy weather training was provided to the trainees prior to getting underway."

Scheer's report was largely set aside by the Cook Islands, which permitted the vessel to continue sailing while a three-man board of inquiry was convened and did a fresh set of interviews with the officers and crew.

In its final report of August 2007, the Cook Islands' marine board says the Picton Castle picked a "reasonable time to plan a departure."

"There was no pressure to depart before a certain date."

The weather issue is just one element in the Transportation Safety Board's portrait of a fatigued deckhand who was confused by conflicting orders in her final hours.

The investigators say Gainey lacked sleep as she assisted other deckhands in her off hours, while the vessel pitched and rolled in powerful gusts and steep seas.

Affected by fatigue, loss of alertness

"The deckhand was likely affected by fatigue and loss of alertness at the time of the occurrence," says a section of the report read to the Canadian Press.

It describes Gainey as being caught in a flawed communication system between officers and the crew.

By the morning of Dec. 8, as the storm continued, an order was given that the port breezeway, the deck where Gainey was lost, was to be off limits.

However, the report notes in its analysis that not all crew members and trainees were aware of orders to stay off the deck and to work in pairs.

Gainey came to the bridge at around 9 p.m., and told the second mate she wasn't comfortable holding the wheel in the storm.

The report says she was sent below by the acting second mate after she asked for time to rest, but was also given an order to wake up and do hourly ship checks.

Michael Vogelsgesang, the master of the vessel during the voyage, has said he met Laura on deck at 10 p.m. as she was doing a ship check, and he told her to go to bed.

But Canadian safety investigators concluded she didn't understand that order to mean she should stop doing ship checks, and she went back out at about 10:35 p.m., when it's believed she was taken by the wave.

The board finds the communication problems were part of the cause of the accident.

"In the absence of effective and timely co-ordination of on-board communication, likely the deckhand was unaware of the order not to enter the port breezeway, the area where it is believed she was carrying out a ship check when she was swept overboard," it says.