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Duck Boat in Missouri Disaster was Designed by Entrepreneur With no Engineering Training

posted by martyb on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the if-it-walks-like-a-duck,-sinks-like-a-duck,-oh,-wait... dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

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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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @10:29PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @10:29PM (#713398)

    Barack Obama's Coast Guard.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 28 2018, @12:16AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 28 2018, @12:16AM (#713882)

    They are basically revisions of the DUKK(sp?) from WW2, modernized and under continuing manufacture since larger car companies gave up on them.

    Very obviously there are dangers to their design. Having a canopy on them is insanely stupid, but a series of rollbars, even in the event of a capsize, should allow passenger to escape with a minimum of harm if not tethered to the vehicle.

    As far as the certification goes: vehicles like these have been certified since WW2. There is nothing special about them. Certain modifications should obviously be forbidden for safety reasons, but otherwise they are a useful vehicle both in tourism and utility operations and should not be banned as a result of this.