Crew fatigue is being blamed for the capsize and loss of a commercial fishing boat - with Maritime New Zealand saying fatigue is one of the biggest safety issues for the industry.

The fishing boat Jan struck rocks in the middle of the night in the Bay of
Islands in January 2016.

A 17-year-old deck hand had fallen asleep while on his first-ever night watch.

He'd had less than two hours sleep after working a full day.

Maritime New Zealand says the ship's owners, WildFish, had installed watch
alarms on the boat that sound periodically to prevent a crew member on watch
falling asleep.

But it hadn't told the crew they'd been installed, or trained them on their
use.

It says there was also no system for monitoring the sleep of crew members so
no-one overly fatigued went on watch.