Understating Qualification on Charter Boats

[Jaydubya]

On my last charter the boats DM had to be rescued in a high current situation. As an instructor I was looking for my fins and snorkel when another customer (a DM) jumped in the water and rescued him.

I was told by my course director never to lie about my certification level because it will come out in a lawsuit. The plaintiff's lawyers will find out you are an insured professional and potentially name you in the lawsuit so you are accomplishing nothing.

If a charter operator asks me to dive with an inexperienced diver ( it has never happened so far) I would demand a financial concession before agreeing to do it. I'm a paying customer, not boat crew.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Wookie]

I love the water taxi comments. In the US, and any where IMO regulations for passenger vessels apply (including the UK and 159 other signatory countries) the vessel operator is responsible for the safety of the passenger from the dock to the dock. Period. You can scream water taxi at the top of your lungs, but it just doesn't matter when you are facing the Administrative Law Judge, who does not need to follow any sort of legal precedent, by the way. If he thinks you're guilty, you are guilty. You don't get a chance for representation, either. The boat captain, and by extension, crew, have a duty of care to keep their passenger safe. Why we run dive boats, I'll never understand. To answer the OP, passengers do not owe a duty of care to any other passenger or to the vessel, regardless of certification lever. If the passenger is an emergency room physician and chooses not to help, they are not liable in any way. If they are the owner of a training agency with any card they want to print, they owe no duty of care. Don't get wrapped around the axle over nothing.

 

[mathauck0814]

I love the water taxi comments.

My comment on water taxi is specific to the level of service that we command. Pick up, motor out, hook the wreck, dive, unhook the wreck, drive in. Even though you may have a duty of care, what possible difference are you going to make when we're 100m down on a wreck? There's no DM in the water and the accident happened during an intentional venture away from the boat.

 

[FinnMom]

In some countries, like here, if there's anything you could and should have done to help and you DON'T - that's when you have a problem.
If you watch someone have a medical emergency and just "sit down and watch" which was suggested earlier, you'd be in for a serious ****storm around here. You might be able to get away with "panicked" if you have zero FA training and zero experience with stressfull situations, but I wouldn't bet on them not finding out about my army background or the fact that we have two fire drills with FA refreshers every year at work.

Its kinda like not stopping at the scene of a car accident, which would be a criminal offense...

Ditto for Finland, and I suspect the Nordic countries are all similar. You will not be sued/prosecuted for making a reasonable attempt to help. That worry out of the way, you should know that yes, the law REQUIRES you to help. It's a kinder, gentler world with with a heck of a lot fewer lawyers.

 

[Wookie]

My comment on water taxi is specific to the level of service that we command. Pick up, motor out, hook the wreck, dive, unhook the wreck, drive in. Even though you may have a duty of care, what possible difference are you going to make when we're 100m down on a wreck? There's no DM in the water and the accident happened during an intentional venture away from the boat.

Yes, and your argument may hold sway in a civil proceeding, but after you lose in front of the ALJ, you'll lose the civil proceeding anyway.

 

[Edward3c]

I love the water taxi comments. In the US, and any where IMO regulations for passenger vessels apply (including the UK and 159 other signatory countries) the vessel operator is responsible for the safety of the passenger from the dock to the dock. Period. You can scream water taxi at the top of your lungs, but it just doesn't matter when you are facing the Administrative Law Judge, who does not need to follow any sort of legal precedent, by the way. If he thinks you're guilty, you are guilty. You don't get a chance for representation, either. The boat captain, and by extension, crew, have a duty of care to keep their passenger safe. Why we run dive boats, I'll never understand. To answer the OP, passengers do not owe a duty of care to any other passenger or to the vessel, regardless of certification lever. If the passenger is an emergency room physician and chooses not to help, they are not liable in any way. If they are the owner of a training agency with any card they want to print, they owe no duty of care. Don't get wrapped around the axle over nothing.

So you know UK Law intimately enough to state the 'taxi' analogy isn't valid. I think not.

 

[Wookie]

So you know UK Law intimately enough to state the 'taxi' analogy isn't valid. I think not.

Nope, but I've become damn near an expert on dive boat liability, and IMO regulations, to which the UK is bound. Silly dive instructor, let the boat crew questions be answered by the experts.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I love the water taxi comments. In the US, and any where IMO regulations for passenger vessels apply (including the UK and 159 other signatory countries) the vessel operator is responsible for the safety of the passenger from the dock to the dock. Period. You can scream water taxi at the top of your lungs, but it just doesn't matter when you are facing the Administrative Law Judge, who does not need to follow any sort of legal precedent, by the way. If he thinks you're guilty, you are guilty. You don't get a chance for representation, either. The boat captain, and by extension, crew, have a duty of care to keep their passenger safe. Why we run dive boats, I'll never understand.

So how does that explain why ... even within the USA ... there's such a tremendous disparity in how dive charter ops run their businesses?

Are you so much more well-versed in matters of maritime liability than similarly experienced dive boat owners in places like the Great Lakes or the Channel Islands?

I suspect that your responsibility to the safety of your passengers does not extend to how they choose to dive ... that these are more matters of choice than law. Otherwise, why wouldn't all similar types of operations to yours follow the same policies? Surely at least some of them are as well-versed in matters of liability as you are ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Wookie]

So how does that explain why ... even within the USA ... there's such a tremendous disparity in how dive charter ops run their businesses?

Are you so much more well-versed in matters of maritime liability than similarly experienced dive boat owners in places like the Great Lakes or the Channel Islands?

I suspect that your responsibility to the safety of your passengers does not extend to how they choose to dive ... that these are more matters of choice than law. Otherwise, why wouldn't all similar types of operations to yours follow the same policies? Surely at least some of them are as well-versed in matters of liability as you are ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

I think a lot of it has to do with dive boat captains not getting caught yet, and very few cases making it to the ALJ yet. The CG is looking very hard at dive boats and I have been invited to be on the panel. If you ask the owners and Captain of the Miss Lindsay (there are threads discussing the incident on SB) if they would do anything different today, you might get a completely different answer than you would 3 years ago. Can I be expected to perform a rescue at the bottom? No, and the ALJ would not really expect me to (I think). If the diver is in trouble at the surface, and they have demonstrated this type of behavior before (the type of behavior that scares dive boat captains), the boat crew is expected to have formal procedures, train on those procedures, and act in accordance with the procedures to save the diver. And the captain is always expected to have a 1:1 ratio of outbound passengers to inbound passengers. Coast Guard investigative officers are rarely trained to dive, they only know and get involved when the ratio isn't 1:1.

Dive boat captains are, as a group, narrow minded jackasses. Their word is law on the water (there is some truth to that), and their poop don't stink, or if it does, everyone should enjoy the smell. There won't be any regulatory agency gonna tell them what to do... Sadly, in the current nanny state, the insurance company has the ability to tell the captain how he will operate (I expect that has hit my level of charter hard, maybe not the six packs yet, and, as you said in another thread, some boat owner was trying to get you to pick up his liability requirements when you were a passenger?), and the coast guard is certainly hitting us hard, maybe especially here in the Keys. Requirements for all vessels to carry a rescue boat? We beat that one, requirements for all boats to have inflatable liferafts? We beat that too. Point is, the day of a salty man making his living carrying divers on the sea are drawing to a close, same as the commercial fisherman. Partly because some folks operate vessels that passengers die on.

 

[DBailey]

It doesn't quite work that way in the USA, but it's not cut and dry either.

In order for someone to claim negligence against you, there are four criteria that must be met:

1. There existed a duty to act.
2. The duty was not fulfilled.
3. The circumstances that led to the breach of duty were foreseeable and/or preventable.
4. The breach led to or exacerbated an injury.

A recreationally-trained (non-pro) diver has no duty whatsoever to assist in an emergency. They can legally refuse to do so. However, if they do choose to help, they voluntarily create a duty, and are held to a "reasonable standard of care" based on their highest level of training ... in other words, what would someone at that level of training reasonably be expected to do.

People with professional level training (DM or above) are held to higher standards, and have an implicit duty to assist in an emergency. They are, however, still held to the standard of "reasonable care" for what they were trained to do.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

(Edit: Ah, I posted before reading the preceding post. I suppose repetition doesn't much hurt in this case).

Bob -I am going to disagree with you here, but it could also just be how it is typed. Just because I am a professional, I do not have an implicit duty to assist in every emergency. To be more specific, I DO have an implicit duty to assist with anyone under my duty of care (i.e. someone with whom I have an agreement to act as a professional). I DO NOT have an implicit duty to assist in an emergency for some random person on the dive boat.

With that said, if I am in a position to help, I am going to help to the fullest extent of my abilities. Let the chips fall where they may afterwards. Also, getting out of the way because someone else is executing the rescue is an excellent form of help.

------On to a different topic...

In terms of letting the boat crew know my highest certification and the concern about being paired with an inexperienced diver, I approach it a few ways....

1) If it is a "once in a lifetime dive", I am not going to leave it to chance. I will have a pre-determined buddy or I will hire a DM to be my buddy. If the DM is my buddy, then I will make sure with the shop/charter that no one else will be paired with us.

2) If it is a dive where I am going to be happy breathing compressed air at depth, then I really don't care if they buddy me with someone inexperienced. Yes, I have had the 15 minute dive and got back on the boat with 2300 psi because of my insta-buddy. It is a risk one runs when signing up for a charter alone.

3) In regards to the "lying" form, I put down the highest level of certification that I can prove (with the cert card) at that moment. I have also learned that many charters cringe when they see a DM or instructor card. Their side of the story is that too many "professionals" feel like their certification card allows them not to follow the boat's rules or guidelines set forth in the briefing.