The Civil Guard of Gran Canaria at the request of the Maritime Captain of the Port of Las Palmas, carried out on August 20 the mandatory breathalyzer tests on a captain of a container ship because he presented "handling difficulties in the docking maneuver, putting the crew and the rest of the maritime traffic at serious risk." This was reported by the Benemérita in a press release.
The events occurred on August 20, when the Civil Guard of the Port of Light Section was required by the Maritime Authority in the presence of a container ship flying the flag of Portugal that was carrying out docking maneuvers and that the captain of the same, of Ukrainian origin, showed clear signs of being under the influence of alcoholic beverages.
It should be noted that the complexity of the docking maneuver of a ship of this size implies a high risk for the ship and the rest of the maritime traffic, even more so when the captain is intoxicated.
For this reason, the highest responsible of the Maritime Authority, based on the principle of institutional collaboration, requested the Civil Guard of the Fiscal and Borders Section of the Port of Light this circumstance, which in turn brought the facts to the attention of the Traffic Subsector of Las Palmas, in order to request support and provide the necessary means to proceed with an alcohol detection test to the captain of the ship, giving it a positive result of 1.13 mg/l in exhaled air.
As a consequence of this result, the results were transferred to the requesting authority, who decided to adopt the precautionary measures of immobilizing the ship, thus ensuring the safety of the port facilities as well as that of the ship itself and its crew.
For these facts, the captain of the ship faces an administrative infraction for the breach of his obligations, by exceeding the rate of 0.25 mg/l of alcohol in breath, article 86.3 of Royal Decree 269/2022, of April 12, which regulates the professional and competence titles of the Merchant Marine, in which it details the limits of alcohol.
Exceeding this limit will determine that the member of the crew is in a state of intoxication for the purposes of the application of the sanctioning regime, which in this case involved a sanction of 75,000 euros, pursuant to article 308.2e of Royal Legislative Decree 2/2011, of September 5, which approves the Consolidated Text of the Law on State Ports and the Merchant Marine.
