Liveaboard Dive Boat in Belize

[galindenba]

You're right. I don't know much about the incident which is why (Instead of pontificating like an expert which I'm not. Even though I've been in the business myself for over 35 years.) I wrote, "I don't know enough about hurricanes and seamanship to say whether Hughes was at fault or not." I fully acknowledge your point that Hughes may have been completely negligent in this case.
I was just pointing out that it seems to me that liv-a-board diving world wide is much more restricted and a little less fun since the Mitch incident because everyone is afraid of litigation. I miss the old days.
I also thought it was worth pointing out what a Hughes crew did for my wife and I when things went wrong for us.

 

[Thatch Caye Belize]

I was down south at the time of the accident (during Hurricane Iris, not Mitch, so that everyone gets their facts straight) and I have been through several hurricanes in my life, and I would have to say that whoever gave the order to stay on the boat was not correct to do so and is, at the very least, guilty of being an unthinking fool. In most hurricanes in the Caribbean, the easiest way to die is to stay onboard a boat. Even tropical storms kill boaters who stay onboard their boats and Iris was a cat 4 with very strong winds right around the eyewall. Since the eyewall was very small, the chancces of it passing right over the Big Creek area where they were sheltered was very slim, but nonetheless, it did pass right over them and anyone with a decent brain would have evacuated the people and been safe rather than sorry.

I also read in reports by our local newspaper that staff were told to stay onboard to continue servicing the guests and that they were not permitted to leave the boat. One or two actually jumped off the boat and ran away before the hurricane started to pound them, but several drowned with the boat.

What this all means to me in relation to modern day ownerships and what you get for your money now is not much. There are generally very convoluted ownership agreements for high liability enterprises and one can probably never know if whoever gave the order to stay onboard the boat is currently benefiting from today's paying customers. One would definitely think that the company would be extra safety concious now, however, regardless of who owns it, because their insurance premiums are probably through the roof and they know how easy it is to go down for something.