Sailboat Runs over DiveFlags at BHB

[ScubaSteve]

I respect your intentions here but have to ask the following (bear in mind I am not a boat captain): By starting and engaging the engines to reposition yourself, have you not already potentially endangered the divers as much as had you let the other ship/boat stay their course? Or are you watching a diver down flag from a distance? I have never dove FL waters so I am not sure if the flag is on the boat or above the divers.

.......and divers will need to chip in and support the only intelligent behavior.

Sounds like another "Defense Fund" in the making unless I am misunderstanding the intention of this statement.

 

[Hetland]

apples and oranges to this particular incident, but:

we've have several incidents this year where fishing boats have exceeded the 300ft buffer out in the Gulf, some at considerable speeds. One guy was about to drop an anchor right on top of a diver's bubbles. Getting on the radio and calling the Coast Guard has had little or no effect in changing behavior (though we do have one report pending).

The fastest way to get boaters to back off is to break out a video camera, and start taping them. Be conspicuous about it. Yell (while recording) out to the boat that you are gathering evidence that they are in violation of dive flag regulations. This obviously won't work on someone coming through on plane, but it's one more tool for the box.

A few additional thoughts:

- The current penalty for a first-time dive flag violation is $50 (iirc). Make it $1,000, and you might have better luck on the enforcement side and the deterrent side.

- Perhaps a letter to Boat U.S. would be productive. They insure a number of boats, and pointing out the liability associated with injuries caused after a dive-flag violation might make them more proactive on the subject.

- Perhaps a letter to D.A.N. would be productive. They insure a number of divers, and pointing out the liability associated with injuries caused after a dive-flag violation might make them more proactive on the subject.

 

[danvolker]

When you cause an accident, the problem is yours, not mine. I can see that your intentions are good, but your problem is how the judge will see it. A dive flag is a marker, not a fence. I just don't see "he may have put a diver in danger" as a good defense for why one boat intentionally maneuvered in a manner that lead to a collision and its associated loss of property and life.

• A dive flag "is supposed to indicate" to approaching boaters, that a diver "may be" immediately under the flag, or about to surface....
• a dive Flag is NOT utilized just to let boaters know that a diver may be on the bottom 60 to 100 feet below.
• In a "school zone", when school lets out, Police are VERY SERIOUS about speeders that blow through the 15 or 20mph zone at 40 mph or more....they get big fines, and NO PITY. Children may well not have been immediately threatened by being run over, but the NEGLIGENT OPERATION of the care in this "Protected Zone" is a big deal here...this being nearly identical to the Protected zone around a dive flag along a reef, protected also by the dive charter boat ( Like a "Crossing Guard", that would put themselves in front of an oncoming car, to protect the children).
• HYPOTHETICAL.....
  • You are stopped in your car, at a school crossing....You see kids about to cross the road....and in the distance on your other side, you see two cars racing or passing each other, headed right for ther school crossing the kids will be in, in a few moments.....You elect to pull your car out in front of the two speeding cars, in an attempt to get the oncoming cars to see a much larger object they NEED to avoid, and in a worst case scneario, have your car shield the children from the oncoming cars which would other wise run them over.
  • You are captain of a charter boat, watching your flags in the water, and it is 40 minutes into a dive on a 90 foot reef.....You know divers will be popping up any moment.....You see a 30 foot boat approaching at 25 mph, headed straight along the reefline as it if was I-95, and headed DIRECTLY on an intersect course with your dive flags. You as captain, are responsible for the safety of your divers, so YOU elect to position youir 40 foot dive boat directly in the path, between the dive flags and the oncoming boat... If the oncoming boat is not on auto-pilot, or drunk, they will see you and change course. If they are on auto-pilot, or drunk, at the last moment you may be able to change direct impact to a glancing blow, throwing them off the intercept course and also waking them up..or you may have to jump off the boat.....personally, if a boat is running down a reefline full of other boats and divers, with no-one at the helm, or someone dead drunk at the helm, I would think this could be a pretty severe crime in itself. The response by a diveboat to this could make it into 400 level Philosophy courses in college, in discussions of conflicting duties, moral imperatives, and over-riding duties ( categorical imperatives)....

 

[danvolker]

I respect your intentions here but have to ask the following (bear in mind I am not a boat captain): By starting and engaging the engines to reposition yourself, have you not already potentially endangered the divers as much as had you let the other ship/boat stay their course? Or are you watching a diver down flag from a distance? I have never dove FL waters so I am not sure if the flag is on the boat or above the divers.



Sounds like another "Defense Fund" in the making unless I am misunderstanding the intention of this statement.

The dive charter boats know where to "stand to" away from the divers which could be surfacing, and know how close to a dive flag they can get....they are extremely cautious near them...In the instance of your question, the dive boat would have been "standing to" well away from the dive flags, and they constantly scan for on coming boats....if they saw one coming, they would take off outside of the caution area, and maneuver outside of the caution area. They do this all the time, "legal" taking a huge back seat to moral.

 

[redacted]

[*]HYPOTHETICAL.....

• You are stopped in your car, at a school crossing....You see kids about to cross the road....and in the distance on your other side, you see two cars racing or passing each other, headed right for ther school crossing the kids will be in, in a few moments.....You elect to pull your car out in front of the two speeding cars, in an attempt to get the oncoming cars to see a much larger object they NEED to avoid, and in a worst case scneario, have your car shield the children from the oncoming cars which would other wise run them over.

• 
  
  Interesting hypothetical as I have experienced a similar situation. Two kids start crossing the shoulder of a HW to board a school bus. I'm stopped behind the school bus. Oncoming car (2 lanes with shoulders) clearly not slowing down and kids about to enter the oncoming lane. I considered pulling out but realized the oncoming car would not be able to stop and I might end up blocking the only safe pathway and force the car into the kids I laid on the horn and the kids safely retreated. Car did stand on the brakes but could not stop until well past the kids, bus, and me.
  
  Bottom line is do what is safest for all involved. Don't make the situation worse. If you can safely maneuver to alert the boat (or divers) without creating a more hazardous situation then do it. But jumping out in front of the speeding bus may just get you and others killed as the bus loses control trying to avoid you. If you force the boat to maneuver to avoid a collision with you, you may just be putting others, including your divers, in more danger. The key to wookie's story is he executed a safe (and legal) maneuver. If the captain executes an unsafe maneuver, then the captain may have a problem.

 

[mdax]

wonder if it would be illegal to just create a more "robust" diver down flag/float
Something that has large metal spikes, with chains attached to smaller floats to foul props.
Maybe connect a few floats with light chain that will screw up a prop.
Making something like that would be WAY faster than changing laws and working with the state i'd think.

 

[ScubaSteve]

I for one am going to start diving on whichever charter hires Paul Watson (Sea Sheppard & Ady Gil captain) . He knew how to get in the way of oncoming boats.

Seriously, I do hope that anybody that is proposing to put their boat in front of oncoming traffic realizes that it would likely cost them everything in lawsuits if their were a collision. Morally it may make you a hero but financially it would likely make you broke.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Someone mentioned that Florida's economy is powered by tourism. Well, guess what ... boaters as a group are larger, wealthier, more organized, and more well politically connected than divers. That means that if laws are going to get changed, they're likely to get changed to favor the boaters even more than they do now. That's how politics works, and laws are written and enforced based on politics and economics.

Be careful what you wish for.

It's not just Florida either. Several years ago I witnessed a large powerboat literally run over a dive flag. At the time, there was an OW class directly underneath the flag. The boat was doing at least 20 knots in a no-wake zone, was in about 20 feet of water, and was running parallel to the most popular beach in the Seattle area. The whole scene was captured on video. Harbor Patrol was called. Their response was that unless an injury occurred there was no violation ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[bilsant]

In the first case, issuing a citation requires that the officer needs to witness the elements of the offense. They need to be able to testify they personally witnessed the operator of the boat bring it within the statutory limit of the dive flag and be able to provide what evidence they had which supports their estimate of that distance from the flag (ever try to estimate distance across water? They need to testify as to the distance beyond a reasonable doubt) AND that the operator was proceeding faster than necessary to maintain headway and steereage (the officer will need to be able to clearly state why he believes the speed was faster than that).

The officer also needs to identify the individual operating the boat at the time...keeping in mind that if he didn't actually see them at the helm, the suspect operator has the right to decline answering any questions regarding the investigation.

If the officer did not witness the offense, they may take a report which the complainant can then get a copy of to take to the local State Attorney's office to see if they will issue a summons to the offender to appear in court at some future time.

In the second instance, to issue a citation the officer needs to be able to witness that there was a diver in the water, and they either didn't have or were within the designated distance of a flag that was constructed as described by the statute. If the officer is called out because of divers without flags and they are out of the water or in complaince when he arrives, the sames standards apply in that they can take a report and the complainant can obtain it and try to see if the the local prosecutor's office will issue a summons.

IMHO the latter is a far easier offense to prove, so it wouldn't surprise me if more summons were issued to divers without flags than boat operators who get too close to dive flags.

My experience with FWC, FMP (back in the day), the Coast Guard, and pretty much any of the Sheriff's offices has been that they have no bias either for or against divers or boaters, but merely try to use the resources and powers they have to best enforce the law and keep everyone safe. They can't exceed what the law allows them to do.

The other news is that due to the state's reduction in agency strengths across the board, there will be less state law enforcement resources to accomplish what we need.

IMHO regarding the title of this thread, "unwilling" is unwarranted.

 

[danvolker]

IMHO regarding the title of this thread, "unwilling" is unwarranted.

Your points are strong, but the reality is, the LEO's have not patrolled the dive reef areas, where the charter boats are all the time, with any interest at all in warning or ticketing boaters that recklessly endanger divers (by approaching within 50 feet of diver down flags, at speeds often far in excess of 15 mph). However, since the Sailboat incident, the sherriff boats are suddenly doing safety checks on dive boats, even though they are commercial vessels, subject to the much more stringent Coast Guard regulations. Additionally, the sheriffs are now patrolling around the BHB, ticketing any divers they see coming out of the water without a dive flag--this is the MOST RIDICULOUS action possible, as they have already proven that they WILL NOT enforce the dive flag distance and safet zone for boaters in the area.....
Personally, I would enjoy telling them that it would be foolish for me to drag around a dive flag, which boaters can ignore with impunity, and the only thing that will keep me safe is my ability to hear boats coming when I am underwater, and to avoid them myself.
If I have to pull a flag just so a sherrif can keep tabs on my whereabouts and potential "no flag ticket revenue", they can start spending tax payer money right now trying to figure out when and where I am, underwater... .....


Somewhere I seem to remember their motto was "To Protect and Serve".... Where did that go ?