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redhilltown
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| Quote: | Originally posted by doradodan
Talked to crew member. They hit something, every witness is coming up with stories. There isn't rogue waves to blow over a boat 110 feet
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This would certainly make more sense... 45' waves????? Sounds like it will take a while for all the stories to shake out but "operator error" sure
seems to be at the top of the list.
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bullmello
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A rather damning article from the San Jose Mercury News
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18443768
excerpt:
"After viewing video of the 105-foot fishing boat that capsized Sunday in the Sea of Cortez, veteran Baja California charter fisherman Scott Hill said
it should never have set sail.
"I've been on boats all over the world, big ones, small ones, you name it," said Hill, of San Rafael-based Western Boat & Tackle. "There is no way
I'd get on this.
"That boat was so top-heavy it's just unbelievable," the charter fishing veteran said after viewing video of the Erik and discussing it with
colleagues."
I would have to agree. The Erik without pangas loaded on the back may have been reasonably seaworthy. Question: Does anybody think the Erik with
pangas loaded would pass inspection by the Coast Guard?
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bullmello
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As mentioned in a previous post in this thread I was on the Erik in 1991 with a group charter to Socorro Island. Fortunately the weather was good and
there was no incident. It feels as though now my friends and I dodged a bullet as have many others in the 20 years or so since. After that trip I and
most sensible friends with me would never get on that boat again. Furthermore I would never get on any boat operated by Gustavo Velez or his cohorts.
After a bait and switch by Gustavo from the trip being booked on the Capitan Villegas, now the Tony Reyes, we ended up going on the Erik. Once
underway we discovered the boat had no working radar, gps and they ended up relying on hand held marine radios brought by our group. We also hooked up
a gps unit brought by one of our group members which was used for navigation by the crew.
This is the tip of the iceberg of things that happened on our trip. What happened this last week to the innocent passengers on the Erik brought back
many memories of our group's experience on that same boat and the way that Gustavo operates. As I stated in a previous post, it's hard to believe he
is still operating boats anywhere. Sorry if this seems harsh, but I will not be surprised by any damning findings regarding the way this boat was
operated leading directly or indirectly to this disaster.
The Erik at Socorro 1991
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BajaNews
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Four survivors return to Sonoma County, two buddies still missing
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20110708/ARTICLES/11070...
By DEREK MOORE
July 8, 2011
The men were sunburned and exhausted, having driven some 14 hours to get home to Sonoma County and reunite with families they didn’t think they’d ever
see again after jumping from a sinking ship into a dark and menacing sea.
They were anxious to share their stories but reticent about revealing too much. They are fishermen after all, who prefer to drink beer and swap
stories about the big hauls and near misses rather than talking about their own survival.
Gathered around a dining room table in a Sebastopol home Friday, they described their terror and their joy, as well as their pain and their guilt of
leaving Mexico without two of their friends, who remain missing in the Sea of Cortez.
“You don’t want to leave your friends there,” Dennis DeLuca, 57, said.
DeLuca, Warren Tsurumoto, 50, and Dave Levine, 53, were among those on board a boat chartered by 27 Americans — most from the Bay Area — when it
capsized before dawn Sunday in a fierce storm off the Baja California coast. A fourth Sonoma County man, Jim Miller, also survived.
Seven men have yet to be found, including Penngrove’s Russ Bautista and Petaluma’s Shawn Chaddock. As Mexican and U.S. authorities continued searching
for the men Friday, their buddies reflected on the circumstances surrounding the doomed voyage.
Tsurumoto’s mother’s home, where the three survivors shared their experiences, is almost 800 miles and a world away from San Felipe, where the men
boarded the 105-foot Erik on Saturday for what was supposed to be a six-day fishing adventure.
Seated behind her husband, Joan DeLuca put a hand to her mouth and began crying when he recalled being rescued and reaching her on an Internet
connection. Until that call, she didn’t know whether the Sebastopol construction and engineering manager for AT&T was alive.
“It was awful,” she said.
The mood had been very different when the men departed Sonoma County for the long drive to Mexico. Bautista, who the men referred to as “captain” or
“commodore,” was the group’s leader, having been on the trip several times before.
Miller, 70, has been Bautista’s neighbor for nearly 30 years and the men have been on numerous fishing trips together. But this was the first time
Miller had joined him on the Baja excursion. The trip was affordable — only $600 per man for the entire week.
The fact the adventure required a long drive to Mexico didn’t bother them. “We’d go anywhere to get a tug on a line,” Levine said.
After arriving at their hotel in San Felipe, about 120 miles south of the Mexican border on the eastern shore of Baja, the men broke out the coolers
filled with ice-cold beer and sat around swapping fish stories. The next day, July 2, they boarded the Erik.
Levine, who lives in Bodega Bay and works heavy highway construction, described the boat as a “rust-bucket.” After Bautista, a retired Pacific Bell
worker, showed him around the vessel, Levine asked him when the crew was going to give the men a safety orientation.
“He said, ‘You just had it. This is Mexico,’” Levine recalled.
Despite the boat’s condition, the men said they felt safe heading out because several in the group had been on the same trip before and because the
boat was not going to be out of sight of land. The boat had nine small fishing boats attached to it that they figured could be used in an emergency.
The weather was perfect — sunny skies and calm water, like that of a lake. The mood remained jovial through a dinner of fajitas and drinking on the
upper deck.
But then the wind started to kick up and the boat began to toss.
Most of the men had gone to their cabins for the night by the time Miller, a retired electrical superintendent, headed back on deck. He and a few
others couldn’t sleep because of the heat and their unease over the increasingly foul weather.
Miller and five other men, including DeLuca and Bautista, were assigned to cabin nine, which was on an upper deck behind the bridge.
Miller watched as waves struck the boat’s port side and then cascaded over the top. The water began filling the fish hold, where the hatch had been
left open, as well as the interiors of the smaller fishing boats called pongas, which were left uncovered.
With each successive wave, more water stayed in the boat, until the vessel began to list to one side. Miller said that’s when one of the men said they
were in trouble.
Miller said he rushed to his cabin and turned on the lights. He said his bunkmates thought he was joking when he told them to get out, but then
realizing he was serious, they began hustling.
Miller said the last time he saw Bautista, he was rushing out the cabin door dressed only in his underwear and carrying a life vest on one shoulder.
Miller watched him leave while struggling to pull on cut-off shorts.
Below in a cabin, Tsurumoto was watching the movie “Secretariat” on his iPad when Chaddock, his bunkmate, leaned over and asked him if the boat was
supposed to be leaning so far over.
“Hell no,” said Levine. “We gotta get out of here.”
The men raced out of the room. To their dismay, they noticed that the boat’s entire crew of 16 already was assembled on deck, wearing nice life vests.
Tsurumoto said the boat’s cook handed him a life vest that had broken straps.
There was no time for complaining. Tsurumoto and the other men jumped overboard into the dark sea.
Miller was still on board and had gone to the bridge to search for a life vest. By then, the boat was at a 45-degree angle. When water broke the
windows on one side of the bridge and the power went out, Miller knew it was time to go.
He remembered seeing two large life rings attached to the top of his cabin earlier that night. He made his way to them but was disheartened to see
that they were attached solidly with straps. Calling out for something to cut them with, Miller was handed a fish filet knife - not ideal.
He managed to cut away one strap but as he began work on the other, the boat heaved backward for its final down. As the boat sank, Miller hung on,
furiously cutting away at the strap.
He was about 10 feet under the water’s surface when he finally freed the straps. The rings broke free and floated away, as Miller, entangled in rope,
kicked frantically to get away. Miller discovered later that he broke a toe. The boat’s metal mast also struck him, bruising his ribs.
Miller’s actions turned out to be a lifesaver, as the rings supported 18 passengers and crew members. Miller’s friends said he acted heroically. But
Miller dismissed the notion Friday and he feels guilt over not being able to do more.
“I was just trying to save my ass,” he said.
With lightning speed, the men found themselves in the dark and balmy ocean, naked or nearly so, riding swells they estimated to be 25 feet high. Men
could be heard screaming in Spanish and in English over the din of the wind and crashing waves.
Tsurumoto and DeLuca connected with other passengers and crew members around a hastily arranged flotilla of three floating ice chests.
Levine was in another group, and luckily, he found his own cooler. In it was his fishing bag, which contained an inflatable life vest and some candy.
Miller was clinging to one of the life rings along with other men.
Through the night, men shouted to one another and helped one another to stay afloat. “We told a lot of stories in the dark,” Levine said.
They didn’t know it then, but it would be hours before anyone would come looking for them. Mexican authorities were not aware that there had been a
disaster until one of the men who was rescued by a fisherman reported the incident. By then, they all had been drifting for several hours.
Tsurumoto thought about his 86-year-old mother, Amy, and about his father and two sisters, all of whom are deceased. He worried who would take care of
his mother if he died.
That seemed a real possibility when Tsurumoto spotted a shark circling him in the water. Thankfully, the fish swam away.
After daybreak, DeLuca and Levine decided to swim for help. Both were beaten back initially by the currents after several hours.
On his second attempt, Levine made it to an island, where he was spotted by passing fishermen and rescued.
DeLuca fended off a curious sea lion by throwing his camera at it. He’d discovered the device in his pocket. His own fortune included finding a
floating cooler filled with water and three bottles of Gatorade, which helped quench his thirst. All of the men at some point were so thirsty their
tongues had swollen.
DeLuca was thrilled to see a helicopter fly overhead, and then soon after, an approaching boat. When it got closer, he said to the men on board, “gosh
darnn if the water isn’t nice this time of year.”
He was so fatigued that when he got in the boat he collapsed and began to weep. “I hugged the old guy’s ankles next to me,” he said.
Tsurumoto, DeLuca and another man ended up at the same house on an island called Bahia de los Angeles. DeLuca said he downed a beer and ate a tuna
fish sandwich, then fell into sleep.
The next morning, he called his wife.
Levine and Miller were flown to a military hospital, where Miller’s broken toe was examined. They eventually made it back to their hotel in San
Felipe.
Their joy at being alive was tempered, however, by the knowledge that Bautista and Chaddock were missing.
Tsurumoto said Chaddock had been behind him in those first frantic moments when they rushed to get out of the cabin. He said he assumed the Petaluma
auto mechanic — who according to the men was an insulin-dependent diabetic — had turned around to retrieve medications.
Miller agonizes over what might have happened to Bautista. Did he make it into the water? Or perhaps get trapped by a canopy that hung over one of the
walkways?
He also blames himself for not doing more to alert the men in another cabin as he passed by — even though he remembers opening the door.
All of the surviving men say they are angry at the boat company for what they say is their negligence in not properly training the crew or providing
the proper equipment for emergencies.
The boat company, Baja Sportfishing, once worked out of San Diego, but owner Alexander Velez let the license expire last year. It was unclear whether
the company had moved to another city or relocated to Mexico, where its boats departed. The Baja Sportfishing web site said company officials could
not respond to messages, and that all trips have been canceled.
The men said they were told that the boat’s skipper was warned not to go out that Saturday night because of bad weather moving in. They also say he
could have piloted the boat safely through the heavy swells had he headed more directly into them.
Levine said the crew “knew how to save themselves, except for the cook, who handed out life jackets. And he couldn’t swim.”
The men said they saw the body of Leslie Yee, 65, of Ceres, the lone confirmed death so far.
The group left San Felipe Thursday morning armed with a letter from U.S. consulate officials that urged their safe passage home. The letter was
necessary because the men lost their passports, driver’s licenses and everything else they had with them when the boat went down.
Nevertheless, they said they were hassled at the U.S. border by officials who told them they hadn’t been made aware of their situation.
The men took turns driving Bautista’s pickup truck home, and after arriving in Sonoma County Thursday night, they stopped by his home in Penngrove.
Joelle Bautista said she was “very, very glad” to see them. But after listening to the men recount in detail what happened, she said she does not want
to hear it again anytime soon.
“I’m just trying to keep it out of my mind because it must have been a terror for each and every one of them, including my husband,” she said.
She said the U.S. Coast Guard informed her that they were planning to expand their search for her husband and the other missing men Friday to include
an additional 800 nautical miles, on top of the 1,900 miles they’ve already scoured.
The Coast Guard is sending her daily emails containing maps of where the search has been conducted so far. She said she was told that divers also will
attempt to reach the sunken boat once the search shifts into “recovery mode.”
Joelle Bautista said she’s heartened that the search already has surpassed the Mexican Navy’s original deadline of 96 hours, and by the stories she’s
heard of men who have survived for as long as 12 days in similar conditions.
“We’re just hopeful today is the day they find him,” she said.
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bullmello
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"Miller watched as waves struck the boat’s port side and then cascaded over the top."
This is the second report that mentioned waves striking the side of the boat.
"The men said they were told that the boat’s skipper was warned not to go out that Saturday night because of bad weather moving in. They also say he
could have piloted the boat safely through the heavy swells had he headed more directly into them."
Any skipper worth their salt knows to point their bow into the waves. Why did the skipper of the Erik apparently not do this?
"The men raced out of the room. To their dismay, they noticed that the boat’s entire crew of 16 already was assembled on deck, wearing nice life
vests. Tsurumoto said the boat’s cook handed him a life vest that had broken straps."
That is sad.
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monoloco
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This tragedy was totally preventable, the captain should be locked up for criminal negligence.
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mtgoat666
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monday morning quaterbacking - superbowl superstar edition
| Quote: | Originally posted by bullmello
A rather damning article from the San Jose Mercury News
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18443768
excerpt:
"After viewing video of the 105-foot fishing boat that capsized Sunday in the Sea of Cortez, veteran Baja California charter fisherman Scott Hill said
it should never have set sail.
"I've been on boats all over the world, big ones, small ones, you name it," said Hill, of San Rafael-based Western Boat & Tackle. "There is no way
I'd get on this.
"That boat was so top-heavy it's just unbelievable," the charter fishing veteran said after viewing video of the Erik and discussing it with
colleagues."
I would have to agree. The Erik without pangas loaded on the back may have been reasonably seaworthy. Question: Does anybody think the Erik with
pangas loaded would pass inspection by the Coast Guard? |
monday morning quarter backs!
the boat was probably adequate. the word on the street is the chief engineer wasn't very good, and the owner/captain was shady businessman.
i still think the boat was not the problem. i think it simply got into a bad storm, and took some large waves, perhaps a large rogue, when all the
doors were open, leading to rapid flooding through open doors where weight imbalance put it on its side where it could not recover.
you have to remember in high seas to close the doors.
[Edited on 7-9-2011 by mtgoat666]
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mtgoat666
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| Quote: | Originally posted by bullmello
"Miller watched as waves struck the boat’s port side and then cascaded over the top."
This is the second report that mentioned waves striking the side of the boat.
"The men said they were told that the boat’s skipper was warned not to go out that Saturday night because of bad weather moving in. They also say he
could have piloted the boat safely through the heavy swells had he headed more directly into them."
Any skipper worth their salt knows to point their bow into the waves. Why did the skipper of the Erik apparently not do this?
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bullhead:
the passengers probably only woke after the boat lost momentum, and was broadside to waves. perhaps the engines were already dead, or helm control
was already lost when passengers woke up.
| Quote: | Originally posted by bullmello
"The men raced out of the room. To their dismay, they noticed that the boat’s entire crew of 16 already was assembled on deck, wearing nice life
vests. Tsurumoto said the boat’s cook handed him a life vest that had broken straps."
That is sad. |
passengeres should study safety equipment right after they get on boat. don't expect crew to come to your aid in emergency. passengers should know
where life vests are - most every boat has a safety briefing for new passengers.
if a problem started small and then grew, one would expect crew to have been up and awake before passengers. that's not a bad, just the way things
work.
any of you that go out on boats should know where safety equip is before you go to bed. don't wait to ask after you need it.
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monoloco
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| Quote: | Originally posted by mtgoat666
| Quote: | Originally posted by bullmello
A rather damning article from the San Jose Mercury News
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18443768
excerpt:
"After viewing video of the 105-foot fishing boat that capsized Sunday in the Sea of Cortez, veteran Baja California charter fisherman Scott Hill said
it should never have set sail.
"I've been on boats all over the world, big ones, small ones, you name it," said Hill, of San Rafael-based Western Boat & Tackle. "There is no way
I'd get on this.
"That boat was so top-heavy it's just unbelievable," the charter fishing veteran said after viewing video of the Erik and discussing it with
colleagues."
I would have to agree. The Erik without pangas loaded on the back may have been reasonably seaworthy. Question: Does anybody think the Erik with
pangas loaded would pass inspection by the Coast Guard? |
monday morning quarter backs!
the boat was probably adequate. the word on the street is the chief engineer wasn't very good, and the owner/captain was shady businessman.
i still think the boat was not the problem. i think it simply got into a bad storm, and took some large waves, perhaps a large rogue, when all the
doors were open, leading to rapid flooding through open doors where weight imbalance put it on its side where it could not recover.
you have to remember in high seas to close the doors.
[Edited on 7-9-2011 by mtgoat666] |
Bottom line is that it's the captains fault, he's responsible for the
maintenance of the boat, the actions of the crew and the safety of the passengers, a big wave didn't just come out of nowhere and slap the boat down,
mistakes were made, it was his responsibility to make sure they weren't.
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wessongroup
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Looks ok to me...
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MexicoTed
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Crew hunts for victims in Mexico boating tragedy
Baja California, Mexico --
Flying 500 feet above the Gulf of California, air crewman Christopher Gray radioed to his pilot from the rear of the plane: "There's some splashing.
It might be something."
"Then let's turn it around," the pilot said, and banked the aircraft to the right.
Gray, who was perched on the tail-end ramp of a C-130, was part of a search team dispatched from Coast Guard Air Station Sacramento on Friday to look
for seven Bay Area men who have been missing since their fishing boat, the Erik, capsized off Mexico's coast Sunday.
The chances of finding anyone alive in a raft or washed ashore on one of the sea's sun-baked islands were slim.
Yet Gray, who has been in the Coast Guard for seven years, has participated in countless open sea searches - he rescued one boater who'd been adrift
in the Pacific for several days - remained optimistic.
"That's someone's brother, someone's father we're looking for," Gray said. "And that means everything to them. I know I'd be fit to be tied if I was
at home, waiting to see if they found my loved one. ... So yeah, it keeps us motivated."
Instead of returning to Sacramento on Friday evening, the crew was ordered to land in Yuma, Ariz., and to continue daily search missions until
Tuesday. The families of the missing and U.S. politicians had pressured Mexican authorities to allow continued operations, even after the Mexican navy
was planning to switch to a recovery mission for the presumed dead.
Searching the box
Friday's search plan called for the aircraft to cover a 370-square-mile box that included the northern tip of Isla Angel de la Guarda - the Island of
Our Guardian Angel. The search area was set by Mexican navy and U.S. officials who had supervised operations during the week and studied the sea's
tidal drift patterns. To date, crews have scoured about 2,000 square miles by sea and air.
"They give us the box, we fly, we search," said Lt. Kevan Hanson, the co-pilot. "That's what we're good at, that's what we'll do."
Hanson had heard that a Coast Guard mission Thursday turned up a raft, but no survivors. It was unknown if the craft was used by one of the men from
the Erik or if it was a random piece of debris floating on the vast seascape.
The trick to spotting a survivor in open waters is not to get tricked. A diving bird or jumping fish creates a whitewater bull's-eye that ripples
outward - just like the splashes from a survivor. A clump of seaweed in the distance can, for a moment, appear as something hopeful - a seat cushion,
perhaps.
On Friday, it took 2 1/2 hours by air from Sacramento to reach the Gulf of California. Once the plane neared the search box, pilot Lt. Cmdr. Ernie
Gameng and co-pilot Hanson lowered the plane from 20,000 feet to 500. If they needed to get a good look, they would drop the huge aircraft to 50 feet.
Watching the radar
On the flight deck navigator Nick Osborne kept his attention on a Selex radar system. The radar can track hard objects in the water - floating chairs
or coolers - but a lone person is too fine to detect.
"Hopefully," Osborne said, "if they're out there, they're holding onto something."
The search conditions, which were ideal for the crew, were probably unkind for anyone trying to survive without rations. The cloudless skies and flat
water made it easy for a searcher to notice a bump on the horizon or a shiny reflection from miles away. On the other hand, the unrelenting sun was
enough to dehydrate a man within hours, much less five days. And even in 85-degree water, a human would succumb to hypothermia eventually.
So some hope aboard the C-130 was given to the idea that the men had made it to land.
By noon, and deep into Mexican airspace, the plane began flying the 21 legs to fill in the box - 11 back and forth laps, crossed horizontally by 10
more legs, in about 7 1/2 hours.
The pilots lowered the back-end and Gray, along with crewman John Hurst, scurried out to the back edge, ready to launch a survival package filled with
water, candy, lip balm, sunscreen and Mylar blankets.
Second looks
Every time one of the crew members spotted an item of interest - "You see that white thing at 2 o'clock about 2 miles out?" - all aboard would take a
long look. If they weren't sure - and flying at 176 mph, things can pass by quickly - they turned around.
They turned around for, among other things, a piece of cardboard, or perhaps a matt folded over; an abandoned refrigerator on a desolate shoreline; a
white box, probably Styrofoam, that had sunk by the time they returned; a wooden sign on an island that, for a moment, brought enough interest and
excitement for someone to ask, "Is that a distress sign?"
The sign was made of plywood, and after Gray used camera controls to zero in on the wooden plank from miles away and reported to the others, the pilot
said, "Let's call it debris and move on."
After about 11 hours in the air, the crew was back in Yuma. The doors to the plane opened, and Gray jumped out to begin refueling.
"If there's a small chance, that means there's hope," he said. "There's always another day."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=%2Fc%2Fa%2F20...
[Edited on 7-9-2011 by MexicoTed]
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JZ
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| Quote: | Originally posted by mtgoat666
| Quote: | Originally posted by bullmello
A rather damning article from the San Jose Mercury News
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18443768
excerpt:
"After viewing video of the 105-foot fishing boat that capsized Sunday in the Sea of Cortez, veteran Baja California charter fisherman Scott Hill said
it should never have set sail.
"I've been on boats all over the world, big ones, small ones, you name it," said Hill, of San Rafael-based Western Boat & Tackle. "There is no way
I'd get on this.
"That boat was so top-heavy it's just unbelievable," the charter fishing veteran said after viewing video of the Erik and discussing it with
colleagues."
I would have to agree. The Erik without pangas loaded on the back may have been reasonably seaworthy. Question: Does anybody think the Erik with
pangas loaded would pass inspection by the Coast Guard? |
monday morning quarter backs!
the boat was probably adequate. the word on the street is the chief engineer wasn't very good, and the owner/captain was shady businessman.
i still think the boat was not the problem. i think it simply got into a bad storm, and took some large waves, perhaps a large rogue, when all the
doors were open, leading to rapid flooding through open doors where weight imbalance put it on its side where it could not recover.
you have to remember in high seas to close the doors.
[Edited on 7-9-2011 by mtgoat666] |
I've got a lot of hours out on the ocean. I don't see how a thunderstorm can take down a 115' boat. That makes no sense at all. It should be next
to impossible.
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Hook
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Well, how many hours do you have on 115 foot boats during extreme tides on a relatively shallow shelf in a thunderstorm? 
IF this vessel is top heavy and lists into a wave with the hatches open (they always are on these boats 'cause it's so damn hot below decks), then I
can see this happening.
Two survivors report being hit by a big wave. Lets say it's swinging on its anchor in 30 knots winds or more. Right at the apex of a swing, a large
wave hits it at 75-90 degrees to the hull. That North Sea bow would be useless.
Plus maybe it's rolling radically with pangas raised out of the water. Open hatches, rogue wave at the wrong angle. Could easily happen. Probably did.
Water coming down the hatches and companionways probably prevented the missing from getting out.
[Edited on 7-10-2011 by Hook]
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JZ
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115' boat is a monster. Still don't see how it's possible.
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bullmello
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| Quote: | Originally posted by JZ
115' boat is a monster. Still don't see how it's possible. |
Mother nature is a bigger monster, the biggest. When man puts his best experience and best engineering foot forward, he may have a chance.
When he plies his toys foolishly in her face there is no chance but luck. Then luck runs out.
Hopefully further investigation will determine some facts about why this happened and how it can be prevented in the future. Other posters have made
good points on why the bow might not have been pointing into the waves. Maybe we can learn more.
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monoloco
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Registered: 7-13-2009
Location: Pescadero BCS
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| Quote: | Originally posted by JZ
115' boat is a monster. Still don't see how it's possible. |
Anything's possible when there is an
incompetent captain and crew.
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bajajurel
Nomad
Posts: 276
Registered: 6-17-2009
Location: San Diego
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Mood: Fishing for fun
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always expect the unexpected.
bajajurel
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Stickers
Senior Nomad
Posts: 571
Registered: 4-12-2006
Location: SoCal
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| Quote: | Originally posted by JZ
115' boat is a monster. Still don't see how it's possible. |
It happens everyday all over the world to seaworthy, properly managed and skippered unsinkable ships.
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[Edited on 7-10-2011 by Stickers]
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bullmello
Newbie
Posts: 10
Registered: 7-6-2011
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| Quote: | Originally posted by mtgoat666
| Quote: | Originally posted by bullmello
"Miller watched as waves struck the boat’s port side and then cascaded over the top."
This is the second report that mentioned waves striking the side of the boat.
"The men said they were told that the boat’s skipper was warned not to go out that Saturday night because of bad weather moving in. They also say he
could have piloted the boat safely through the heavy swells had he headed more directly into them."
Any skipper worth their salt knows to point their bow into the waves. Why did the skipper of the Erik apparently not do this?
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bullhead:
the passengers probably only woke after the boat lost momentum, and was broadside to waves. perhaps the engines were already dead, or helm control
was already lost when passengers woke up.
| Quote: | Originally posted by bullmello
"The men raced out of the room. To their dismay, they noticed that the boat’s entire crew of 16 already was assembled on deck, wearing nice life
vests. Tsurumoto said the boat’s cook handed him a life vest that had broken straps."
That is sad. |
passengeres should study safety equipment right after they get on boat. don't expect crew to come to your aid in emergency. passengers
should know where life vests are - most every boat has a safety briefing for new passengers.
if a problem started small and then grew, one would expect crew to have been up and awake before passengers. that's not a bad, just the way things
work.
any of you that go out on boats should know where safety equip is before you go to bed. don't wait to ask after you need it.
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One of the primary duties and responsibilities of the crew on any boat, ship or airplane with passengers is the safety of those passengers. I'm not
sure if you have ever flown on a commercial airplane before, but they have safety equipment instructions for the passengers before the plane leaves
the ground. That is a good idea if you care about your passengers or even about liability.
The passengers on the Erik were riding aboard a ship operated by folks who do not seem to have much regard for safety as evidenced by witness
accounts. I'm not a lawyer, but are you saying that a passenger should not have reasonable expectations of proper safety equipment and procedures?
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mtgoat666
Select Nomad
Posts: 18380
Registered: 9-16-2006
Location: San Diego
Member Is Offline
Mood: Hot n spicy
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| Quote: | Originally posted by JZ
115' boat is a monster. Still don't see how it's possible. |
I can tell you that riding a 120 ft boat in 50 foot swells and 60+ knot winds will make you understand a 115 ft boat is an ant.
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looking at the pics of stacked UPRIGHT pangas, it may be that the pangas filled from a rogue wave, and with open hatches doors allowing filling of
ship, the boat was never able to right itself.
those pangas should have been stored on deck upside down.
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