Posted on 10/05/2005 3:22:02 AM PDT by roaddog727
LAKE GEORGE, N.Y. (AP) - Investigators were focusing on excess weight as a possible cause of the boat accident that killed 20 elderly people on a calm, clear day during a sightseeing tour on an Adirondack lake.
(Excerpt) Read more at home.bellsouth.net ...
Not necessarily. What is needed is updated stability calculations regularly and after vessel modifications. The averages are still good most places except New Orleans.
Change all you want, but when your number is up, you are still going.
Why is this Activism/Chapters?
Today I'm going to climb the city water tower and jump off. The way I see it, if it's my time, I'll die. If not, I'll come back tonight and tell you about it.
So, if extra weight is suspected of causing the tragedy-why are the investigators raising hell because the boat was missing a crew member? Plump or puny, wouldn't such an extra person have added to the over load problem?
Maybe a simple rule of,"we don't leave the dock until every passenger has properly secured his/her floatation device to their bodies" was/is needed. And unless the extra deck hand was assigned the duty of enforcing that rule, said hand merely equals more weight.
Sorry folks, but the pilot of the boat can tell when his boat is overloaded, All he has to do is look at the decreased water line on his boat and see he is carrying to much load. I said from the beginning this boat was too small for 50 people to be in it. But by all means lets pass a law requiring flotation devices be required wearing for anyone getting near a boat and for those sunbathing within 50 feet of water. That will solve the whole problem.
At 140 lbs, or 170 lbs per person, should all the passengers slide to one side of a relatively small vessel such as that what outcome would a reasonable man expect?
Further evidence of mans stupidity forcing further governmental regulations and bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo. And we wonder why we are losing our "freedoms"?
Like FEMA, the Coast Guard is going to be pillaried for not acting fast enough. Give me a break!
Prosecutor: Why did you murder your elderly mugging victim?
Defendant: Obviously, his number was up. Why punish me?
Exactly. Accidents do happen and why everyone always blames the government is beyond me. That said, seats not being attached is a concern.
It's what happens when the government assumes responsibilities that were previously up to the individual. But, of course, that's the fault of the individual, too.
That, my Freeper friend, is a subject that we could spend days, months, and years discussing.
May I suggest that like any who are given a teat, they will continue to suckle until it is dry. ;)
There were too many people on the boat. Almost 50 people on a 40 foot boat is too many. If I had been on the boat I would have gotten off before it left the dock.
Last sentence should read "....on his beam or stern."
A simple solution would be to start charging boat and airline passengers by the pound.
Head into the wake so as to face the waves cross ways as would be done by a ship at sea during a typhoon.
Good point.
Not so much a good point as just basic seamanship. A vessel's longitudinal axis is much longer than its lateral axis.
Apparently Coast Guard regulations for determining load capacity of a passenger vessel address just that situation - the boat must remain stable (something like no more than 15 degrees of list) when its full passenger load is on one side of the boat. Apparently, for whatever reason, this boat was no longer stable. Was it overloaded? Did the modifications make it less stable? Was the bilge flooded?
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