Another diver lost

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Groundhog246

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The following came to my attention on a sail boat owners email list where we were discussing dive flags and how big, etc, do they need to be to be seen. I've posted the link, but in case it "breaks" I've posted the text also. I've been working on a more visible float/flag, I think I'll work a little harder.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3555318&thesection=news&thesubsection=general

Boatie cleared in death of diver

18.03.2004
By BRIDGET CARTER
A boatie who ran over a man who was out diving has been cleared of any criminal wrong-doing.
But the case has sparked a review of diving rules, after concern that the flags used to warn boaties about divers are often difficult to see.
Murrays Bay security firm owner Bernard Langton was killed on January 8.
He had been diving for scallops about 90m off Brownrigg Pt, on the south side of Kawau Island, when he was struck by the propeller of a boat travelling towards Bostaquet Bay.
Relatives on board two launches heard yelling from nearby boaties and found Mr Langton, 46, in the water surrounded by blood.
Maritime Police Senior Sergeant Martin Paget said the boatie responsible, who was also a diver, did not see the diver's warning flags, and he mistakenly thought people were calling out for him to slow down because they were fishing.
He had been travelling somewhere between 4 and 8 knots. The legal speed limit was 5 knots, but without a speed-reading device on board it was impossible to prove his exact speed.
The victim's wife, Maree Langton, said she was disappointed that the boat operator had been cleared.
Her husband was an experienced diving enthusiast who did everything correctly and she believed if the boat's operator had been more careful, the tragedy would never have occurred.
"I didn't want anything horrible to happen to him, but I would like to have had the acknowledgment that he had made a mistake," she said.
Speaking from her Murrays Bay home yesterday, Mrs Langton described how the tragedy unfolded during a fine summer day.
The family were on their new Vindex 40 launch, Bernie Langton was out on one of his frequent dives with 1m-tall dive flags up and she and the couple's children, Matthew, 9 and Alicia, 12, were enjoying themselves on board.
As she heard the yelling and realised what had happened, she shut her children in the cabin, made a mayday plea for help and went to her husband's aid with the help of other relatives, some of whom where on another nearby launch.
Mrs Langton said her husband did everything by the book.
"He was just one of those people that just wouldn't steal a peach off someone's tree that was hanging over the fence," she said.
He was a hard-working Northland-born man who always enjoyed the outdoors and diving - to the extent that he would take time off work during summer for weekly dive trips and would take diving gear with him on trips overseas.
He had dived for several years and used to put up dive flags before it became law to do so.
Mrs Langton said one of the things she wanted was for other boaties to show the common courtesy on the water that her husband would have shown, by slowing down, avoiding other boats and looking out for signs warning of hazards in the water.
Jim Lott, the nautical adviser for recreation boating at the Maritime Safety Authority, said that, sadly, there had been a case every few years of a diver being struck by a boat.
Police, the MSA and the diving community were looking at ways to make the signals warning that a diver was down below much clearer, by either changing the style of the flag or introducing a new symbol.
Dive flags were supposed to be displayed in a way that they could be seen 200m away, but that was not always easy.
It meant people had to wave a flag around or hold it out when there was no breeze.
The authority, police and the diving community were looking at ways to make the flags more visible.
Mr Lott said these sorts of accidents could happen even when boats were travelling at the slowest of speeds.
"Even when a boat is travelling at 2 knots and hits a diver, there could be a tragedy," he said.
 
We have to be alert when we hear a boat motor in our vicinity, dive float or no dive float. Often a moving boat will not see a dive float at all. I normally stay submerged until the sound goes away. If the boat is moving, that normally only takes a few minutes, perfect for an extended safety stop, if I am on my way up.

If there is a lot of boat traffic in the area, then it is probably not a good place to exit or enter from the surface by float. From the beach maybe. From the float, probably not. Of course, hindsight is always 20-20.

In the SEABAG portion of my dive planning, I always note boat traffic as a hazard in the S portion of the predive planning, SURVEY of the site. Sometimes is better to go dive somewhere else.
 
He was cleared criminally, but he may yet be found liable in civil court.

The wife wanted the boat driver to be adjudged as having made a mistake...Oh well...I think it is obvious he made a mistake.
 
Maybe. I don't know the area. If he anchored his boat in a well traveled area and did not take great care to make the fact he was diving known, I would not fault the other boater. I've spent a lot of time on the water. I've had times when it's been difficult to locate a red spar buoy that is roughly 3 feet high and a foot in diameter, knowing roughly the direction it should be in. I've seen us within 500 yards before we sighted it. And that's searching for it. If he had a normal little dive flag on a float, even with the little wire to support it horizontal without wind (and the article made it sound like he didn't), if you're upwind or downwind of it, all there is to see is a tiny stick sticking out of the water. There's a reason why many charter vessels paint their boats to look like a big dive flag. Diving off our own boat, I hoist a 3' X 5' dive flag to the spreaders. But that only helps if there's a breeze, haven't figured out a way to "fly" it without wind yet.

It's similar to a person dressed in black, running across the road at night and getting hit by a car. Unless you can show the driver was going well over the speed limit, was impaired, ran a light, etc, he/she is not going to be found at fault.

As far as civil court, this was in New Zealand, not USA. It's a lot harder to bring a case like that to civil court outside the US (including doing so in Canada). Among other issues, you've gotta have the $$ up front for legal fees, as the lawyers aren't allowed to take cases on the basis of a percentage of winnings if they win. And the burden of proof is a little higher.
 
Its sad to read about the death of someone enjoying the sport that I enjoy, especially in the manner in which it occured. Without being there its hard to say what circumstances led to this tragedy however, though I wonder why the boaters did not communicate via radio but chose to yell instead.

As far as boats and dive flags.. down here they make you targets, but are a necessary evil due to laws and regulations. The stories I and other local divers can tell about the near misses, the flags being run down, jet skiiers and boaters trying to take your flag...etc..

My thoughts go out to his family.
 
Situational awareness is important. With the exception of sailboats, (which are both nearly silent and potentially have a keel or centerboard with a relatively deep draft) you can hear a boat in the water. And if you can hear it approaching, you need to excercise extreme caution when surfacing.
 
Groundhog246:
I don't know the area. .


I used to dive this are a lot when I was a kid, collecting scallops, and it is an area of high boat traffic, especially around holidays and weekends.

It is also an area where wind against tide can make the surface conditions rough, and especially in late afternoon when the sun is reflecting off the water it would be almost impossible to see a diver in the water. There is a reef nearby that sticks five feet out of the water and is about 300 feet long, and it is hard to see that sometimes.

This happened on January the 8th, half the North Islands population would have been in boats zooming around Kawau Island on that day.

This kind of tragedy can be avoided by having a surface float such as an inner tube above the diver.

BTW scallops are the most dangerous animal in NZ waters as far as killing divers. They wait until there are enough of them in a sack ,then they drag the diver to the bottom where he drowns. A problem that can also be overcome by tying the sack to the rope attached to the surface float, then pulling them up when the boat arrives.
 

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