At 5.44am on 8 December, closed-circuit television cameras on the cruiseship Vision of the Seas captured the moments before a 24-year-old seafarer from Mauritius climbed over the stern rail between two life rafts and fell to his death.

He had awoken just over an hour earlier on the 2,000-berth, 78,800-gt Vision of the Seas (built 1998) heading back to Galveston, Texas, from Cozumel, Mexico.