Fire on dive boat Conception in CA

[Bob DBF]

absolutely and I was talking generalities, not in any manner speculating on how professional the crew in Conception were.

I understand, I know you get it, but for those that don't...


Bob

 

[EricTheDood]

I'm trying hard to find a single good thing in this entire mess, and so far I guess all there is would be the Grape Escape couple stepping up.

While not a "good thing", the fact that nobody got out of the bunks might be the biggest wake up call of all, and is probably going to be a major talking point moving forward.

I think if even one person made it out, some opinions would change.

 

[cerich]

I think if even one person made it out, some opinions would change.

no, those hatches suck for berthing spaces and over and over and over again history has shown us that at best they work for 1-3 people while the rest perish. That is proven in fires, floods and capsizing. For the few people it works for it's a good thing, but escape hatches generally suck.

 

[EricTheDood]

no, those hatches suck for berthing spaces and over and over and over again history has shown us that at best they work for 1-3 people while the rest perish. That is proven in fires, floods and capsizing. For the few people it works for it's a good thing, but escape hatches generally suck.

Don't get me wrong, I totally agree with you. Those hatches are complete garbage in my book. Even the staircase is uncomfortably small.

I'm just saying that "somebody" would be able to come up with an excuse.

 

[doctormike]

I'm assuming that the deck layout, stair placement and hatch placement are relatively fixed (that is, not going to be changed without a complete redesign and possibly adding risks of flooding, etc...). On the other hand, for the furniture in the berthspace and any ladders, it should be pretty easy to customize the layout to optimize egress, given that the hatch itself isn't going to change. That's what I was getting at upthread asking about the bunk placement.

Of course, there is ALWAYS going to be some risk of sleeping in an enclosed space at sea, in any sort of vessel that meets the other requirements of the job. Yes, you can dive from a canoe, a kayak or a pontoon boat with only a shade and no enclosed spaces, but other than that, there is going to be some sort of restriction of movement. The question is "how do we optimize things?" Not "how do we make it risk free?"

 

[Scuba-74]

the ship is grandfathered and also the current inspector knows that it passed a few decades of inspections just like that. There is nothing about that that surprises me at all.

So, if it's grandfathered and whoever has certified it initially has been honorably discharged, the individual re certifying it annually has no skin in the game? I doubt it very much.

 

[KevinNM]

The issue of how to reduce risk should start with the obvious and easy to fix issues, which in this case is LI charging and smoke alarm monitoring. There really isn’t any reason to not rethink that now. (There are probably others too.)

Structural modifications are a huge issue that would likely impact the viability of the industry, and would seem like you might want to get a better idea what actually happened before that.

 

[Scuba-74]

I think the problem is (as I understand it) this same layout has been signed off on by hundreds of CG officers in thousands of inspections for decades.... How do you then declare that what has been acceptable (thousands of times for decades) in the past is suddenly not acceptable? I imagine, prior to this disaster, an officer failing a vessel like the Conception based on the now obvious concerns of passenger egress would be fighting quite an uphill battle to back up his/her decision. From both his superiors as well the captain/owner of the vessel. Unfortunately it sometimes takes a tragedy like this to shine light on a system's shortfalls that, in hindsight, should have been obvious and addressed much sooner.

Well that is how military works - orders are given, issues are escalated up the chain of command. Captain/owner of the vessel had no problem stating from Day 1 that the vessel passed all the required inspection, and so did the commanding officer of the responding USCG unit. They are effectively passing the accountability to whoever signed off on the inspection. If that person was ordered by his superiors to do it, he should have no problem passing the accountability to them. But the buck must stop somewhere. All that of course is if investigation finds the design of the boat a major contributing factor to the tragedy.

 

[rjack321]

So, if it's grandfathered and whoever has certified it initially has been honorably discharged, the individual re certifying it annually has no skin in the game? I doubt it very much.

The CG inspector isn't sleeping there. He/she has no skin in the game. They also have sovereign immunity.

 

[dshorwich]

Here are a few pictures, taken August 2016, that might help people visualize the boat's layout. The first shows how the wheelhouse sat in relation to the main and lower deck. In the second photo you can see the steps leading from the main deck to the sun deck. The last photo was taken from the sun deck, looking down on the dive deck.