Divers lose boat, no pilot left aboard - Florida

[Scraps]

Every signal redundancy you carry can help, depending on the situation you find yourself in. For example, a signal mirror is often the best way to attract attention from search units, but we had a three-day search one time for two divers who surfaced in the fog and their boat couldn’t find them. A mirror wouldn’t have helped, at least on the first day, but a loud sound producing device would have. I carry both.

 

[Dish]

I'm a spearo too. I'm not saying right or wrong, but many(not all) in my group have heard the acronym ' FOMO ' on the big fish. And I'm guilty too of diving off an un-attended boat.

I wouldn’t call that “guilty”, but I get your point, @Johnoly

 

[Nemrod]

I have been diving from "unattended" boats since I was 14 years old. Just because three people did something stupid hardly means we need more laws and regulations. A anchored boat under a dive flag with divers in the water is not derelict, abandoned or salvageable.

Anchoring up under benign conditions near shore and diving from a boat is not illegal or even stupid and is rather common. Let's see, I paddle my kayak out, go overboard and do a dive, solo, with my kayak tied to me and I should be fined and arrested?

No particular target, but, really, maybe some folks just grew up in a world where they are always 100% safe and anytime they cannot be guaranteed 100% safety they think, OMG, we need more laws! I think further some people here have never dived on their own, skippered any sort of boat or done anything or planned anything, diving or otherwise, where they are not escorted, guided, told what and when to do whatever and otherwise nannied about like a heard of sheep.

There have been several noted and good folks, even perhaps on this forum, who died while diving who were probably doing something they should not have done in retrospect if they had been afforded another chance to reconsider or was beyond their ability, or not wise to begin with for various reasons, or broke some "rule" they had professed as sacrosanct or were not physically fit sufficient to the conditions or counted on their buddies when they should have counted on themselves. Should their families have been charged with the cost of the attempted rescues and searches? Every time somebody dies doing such a thing do we need more regulations to prevent another from doing the very same dive but who are actually capable of doing so by equipment, training, preparation and attitude or other reason? What panel of experts will decide who can and who cannot? We have enough laws as it is.

N

 

[DandyDon]

Anchoring up under benign conditions near shore and diving from a boat is not illegal

No new laws are going to happen, but they were 25 miles out.

 

[Nemrod]

And I did not address their distance from shore. The solution oft presented is just to make heretofore legal behavior illegal. And, no, new laws do not have to happen. Let's see, outlaw cave diving, wreck penetration diving, technical diving, diving below 60 feet, rebreathers, diving lonely rocks or distant reefs in the open sea. Because people die doing those things and sometimes public resources are called to provide search and rescue and some risk to those folks and public funds. I got a good idea, just outlaw everything somebody somewhere thinks is dangerous. Or we could just mind our own business.

Y'all do a lot of boat driving in West Texas? I think the Permian Sea dried up a few years ago, give or take. In your experience as a boatsman, how far out is too far and where should this law define too far or not too far?

James

 

[DandyDon]

Y'all do a lot of boat driving in West Texas?

Resorting to personal attacks over a discussion seems excessive to me. I don't know where the Dixie/High Plains are, but I'll agree that you're probably a more accomplished diver than I. Getting interested in diving living where I do, a minimum of two plane rides to any dive location, was a stretch - but it's also made it easy for me to justify diving a wide variety of locations around the US and the Caribbean. I'm glad I explored so before I got too old for some of those adventures.

The solution oft presented is just to make heretofore legal behavior illegal.

Not an idea that I support or have supported. I question the choices made by the three divers so far from shore, but I have survived a few poor choices of my own as well.

It's all just talk, but discussion is the objective here. I think I only pointed out in reply to your post that they were not "near shore" and that there is no way new laws are going to happen.

 

[Celt]

Discussing how something should be done can help come up with better ways of doing it. For me I have to use a boat to get to the dive site and I have to get out in order to go diving. These are simple facts for a lot of people.

 

[Bob DBF]

The way I look at is, the divers were trying to get in a dive to beat incoming bad weather and neglected to, or did not have the means or ability to, anchor their boat for the incoming weather. A boat can be anchored to ride out a storm however it takes knowledge and proper ground tackle. Most avoid the situation and seek shelter.

The problem was poor judgement, or poor execution, depending on how one looks at it. An example would be a 200' dive which can be relaxing or a cluster***k depending, also, on judgement and execution. Would anyone here want to make 200' dives against the law because some choose not to do them properly?



Bob

 

[PBcatfish]

...
BTW. The open porthole reminded me of this from several years ago. IIRC, the leading theory involved a deck cover that came loose and allowed water to go directly into the bilge, instead of out the scuppers. I'm not sure if that was the final cause or not. Involves divers. First portion of the video is the dive, the real exitement starts at around 4:50.

Was that discussed somewhere else on this board? I'd like to post some comments, but I don't want to push this thread that far off topic.

 

[Belzelbub]

Was that discussed somewhere else on this board? I'd like to post some comments, but I don't want to push this thread that far off topic.

I can’t recall. It happened several years ago. I first saw it on a forum I’m on. Can’t recall if it was a boating forum, a spearfishing forum, or this one.