An inquest into the eight deaths after two vessels sank off Queensland has wrapped up, with the mother of a diver saying more safety measures were needed.

March 28, 2019

The mother of a fisherman lost when a trawler capsized off Queensland says he and the other talented crew deserved to have been rescued, not recovered.

Six men died when FV Dianne rolled and sank off the Town of 1770 on October 16, 2017.

An inquest has heard the vessel had all the correct safety gear but in the dark, as the boat flooded, none of the crew could reach it.

Adam Bidner’s mother, Kay, has urged coroner David O’Connell to recommend increased safety measures for commercial fishing boats in his findings.

“Our boys deserved to be rescued, not recovered,” she said on Thursday as the inquest wrapped up in Gladstone.

“They were out there in their work place doing their job, and they were good,” she said.

“They were talented divers.”

Ms Bidner said she backed a proposal for the Fisheries Department to share commercial fishing boat location data with the Queensland Police Service to add another layer of safety for fishermen.

Barrister Matthew Holmes, acting for lost Dianne crewman Adam Hoffman, said life jackets with personal locator beacons, survival equipment and lighting that would activate in an emergency should be considered.

“(Fisherman) are very poorly represented which is why we say ‘regulators must take their interests into account not just the fishing industry and the owners of the vessels’,” he told the hearing

“They must give some protection to those who are more vulnerable.”

Mr Holmes said life raft requirements must also be reassessed, given rafts on both doomed vessels became entangled and failed to deploy when the boats rolled.

“There was something restricting those life rafts coming free from their cradles,” he told the hearing.

The crewmen on the Dianne were relaxing in their bunks when it began rolling to port side about 7.30pm.

Sole survivor Ruben McDornan said that by the time he reached skipper Ben Leahy in the wheelhouse the boat was already upside down and flooding.

He forced a door open against the rushing water and swam to the surface. None of the others made it out.

Mr Hoffman, 30, Eli Tonks, 39, Mr Bidner, 33, Zach Feeney, 28, Chris Sammut, 34, and Mr Leahy, 45, died despite the Dianne being fitted with life jackets, EPIRBs, grab bags and a life raft.

Last week the inquest explored the sinking of FV Cassandra on April 4, 2016.

The bodies of Cassandra skipper Matt Roberts, 61, and his crewman David Chivers, 36, have never been found after the prawn trawler’s net hooked on the seafloor.

Wild seas prevented rescuers from reaching the crew, who were thought to have been in the cabin before the vessel went down.

Its lifesaving equipment was tangled in rigging and failed to deploy, the inquest was told.

The Cassandra’s forward escape hatch was welded shut and it had an out-of-date safety system.

The inquest has now adjourned for the coroner to prepare his findings.