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posted by
martyb
on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:01AM
from the if-it-walks-like-a-duck,-sinks-like-a-duck,-oh,-wait... dept.
from the if-it-walks-like-a-duck,-sinks-like-a-duck,-oh,-wait... dept.
The Los Angeles Times reports:
The duck boat that sank in a Missouri lake last week, killing 17 people, was built based on a design by a self-taught entrepreneur who had no engineering training, according to court records reviewed by the Los Angeles Times.
The designer, entrepreneur Robert McDowell, completed only two years of college and had no background, training or certification in mechanics when he came up with the design for "stretch" duck boats more than two decades ago, according to a lawsuit filed over a roadway disaster in Seattle involving a similar duck boat in 2015.
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Duck Boat in Missouri Disaster was Designed by Entrepreneur With no Engineering Training
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(Score: 2) by Weasley on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:45PM (4 children)
What good does a personal flotation device do if you're trapped in the boat? At least I assume that must be the case. Could there have been that many people on the boat that can't swim?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @03:29PM (1 child)
From what I've seen, many (most? all?) of the victims fall into a particular demographic of people who aren't good at swimming.
Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Fatal Unintentional Drowning Among Persons Aged ≤29 Years — United States, 1999–2010 [cdc.gov]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @10:27PM
I thought their afros would help them float?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @04:15PM
It's one thing to swim in calm water, but quite another to do so during a storm. Yes, if you were trapped under the boat you'd be screwed, but if you weren't a life jacket would help even a good swimmer. You really want all the help you can get.
Admittedly, most of my experience is on the great lakes and not smaller ones... but a good captain is supposed to ensure that everyone on board gets their life jackets ready at the first sign of bad weather. I don't mean when the waves start to get bad, I mean when you first notice a storm on a horizon or hear about it over the radio. The winds and chop show up before the actual storm does, and if you aren't ready you might not have the chance to get ready depending on the strength of the storm.
Saying "nah, we don't need it" is how you end up with these people in the water and all the life jackets in the boat. Not a good situation, and they probably wouldn't have made it worse had they been worn.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday July 26 2018, @04:32PM
There's a video online of the whole ordeal - I haven't seen it, but from what I've heard it took quite a while between when it was obvious there was a serious problem and when the boat started going down.
Even if you can't swim, a PFD will float you face up. A great captain wouldn't have been caught out by the storm. An adequate captain would have recognized he was screwed and gotten everyone into their PFDs before it started getting bad.
Now, if people don't heed the call to abandon ship, there's not much a captain can do, but when it started looking bad enough to go down, I'd have gotten out a rope and told the strongest swimmers to take the end and swim away from the boat, and had the floaters jump in after them. But, not every disaster story goes well, and just because you've been a captain for 16 years doesn't mean you're not capable of panic.
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