Post-Conception Disaster: what you learned & will change

[Manatee Diver]

We tried TCP over carrier pigeon, the latency and packet loss made it untenable.

If there was a way to plug new cameras into this system (doubt it as I'm guessing a proprietary design), that'd be great. I would suggest limited samples of video, images taken when motion is detected and only captures every X seconds or short bursts of video, as video consumes a lot of storage space.

Anything is possible with enough budget. But considering that most US liveaboards are more like camping at sea, I doubt that they would have the budget for a VDR, a camera system, and all the wiring that would be required.

The luxury liveaboards could probably do that, but most of those vessels are newer and ideally should be safer than the older vessels like the Conception.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

We tried TCP over carrier pigeon, the latency and packet loss made it untenable.



Anything is possible with enough budget. But considering that most US liveaboards are more like camping at sea, I doubt that they would have the budget for a VDR, a camera system, and all the wiring that would be required.

The luxury liveaboards could probably do that, but most of those vessels are newer and ideally should be safer than the older vessels like the Conception.

While budget is certainly an issue, the cost of wireless cameras (thinking Arlo, which is owned by Netgear) has come way down and quite easy to set up. However Arlo is a cloud based application. A Wi-Fi network is not expensive to set up. Of course a company putting this low volume product is likely going to charge a fair bit.

 

[Wookie]

While budget is certainly an issue, the cost of wireless cameras (thinking Arlo, which is owned by Netgear) has come way down and quite easy to set up. However Arlo is a cloud based application. A Wi-Fi network is not expensive to set up. Of course a company putting this low volume product is likely going to charge a fair bit.

Actually, the cameras are the easy part. For the VDR I have in mind (Maretron) they must be IP cameras that will feed the CANbus network. That means IP repeaters wherever there is a camera. And power and wiring and etc. and etc.

 

[kelemvor]

SpaceX is working on aquatic Starlink coverage for boats. They put in the paperwork for US government approval in March. Cost is $499 (equipment), plus $99 per month for speeds around 70 to 130 Mbps. I'm sure that will be a game changer (the bomb, yo) for boat people.

I'm thinking of preordering starlink for terrestrial use. Don't really need it as I've got fiber here but I want to play with the new shiny.

Hey, once we have ubiquitous HSI in the water maybe Tesla will make a self driving boat .


That said, there are plenty of wireless cameras that do not require internet access. Personally, I would avoid internet connected cameras such as Arlo around my home or business no matter what. Having internet transfers on demand as an option is not a terrible idea but streaming video 24x7 from your house to the internet? No way.

 

[tridacna]

SpaceX is working on aquatic Starlink coverage for boats. They put in the paperwork for US government approval in March. Cost is $499 (equipment), plus $99 per month for speeds around 70 to 130 Mbps. I'm sure that will be a game changer (the bomb, yo) for boat people.

I'm thinking of preordering starlink for terrestrial use. Don't really need it as I've got fiber here but I want to play with the new shiny.

Hey, once we have ubiquitous HSI in the water maybe Tesla will make a self driving boat .

Maybe…more complicated and expensive than I thought.

Can I use Starlink on my Boat?

 

[kelemvor]

Maybe…more complicated and expensive than I thought.

Can I use Starlink on my Boat?

Mobile starlink is still a gleam in Elon's eye right now. SpaceX moves to beam Starlink internet into trucks, boats, and aircraft They're working on it.

 

[Wookie]

SpaceX is working on aquatic Starlink coverage for boats. They put in the paperwork for US government approval in March. Cost is $499 (equipment), plus $99 per month for speeds around 70 to 130 Mbps. I'm sure that will be a game changer (the bomb, yo) for boat people.

I'm thinking of preordering starlink for terrestrial use. Don't really need it as I've got fiber here but I want to play with the new shiny.

Hey, once we have ubiquitous HSI in the water maybe Tesla will make a self driving boat .

Yes, I am patiently waiting for a marine Starlink antenna. I’m guessing on the same price order as an active TV dish (around $10k for DirectTV via KVH) but the monthly nut should be far cheaper than Inmarsat. On the Spree we paid $25 a month service fee plus $1.62 per 100 kb at 9600 baud. $3.16 for 36,600, and $315 a minute Mb download speed. I don’t remember what the upload speed was at that price.

 

[SlugLife]

My current dive-buddy's main dive-buddy was on the boat. Without going into too much personal detail, I actually inherited a couple pieces of dive-equipment from someone who was on that boat, as I was just getting started at the time. My dive-buddy was hit hard by the death of his friend.

I've thought a lot about the incident. My initial thoughts were that cruise-ships always go through emergency procedures, and are well-stocked with life-jackets, life-boats, multiple escape routes and more. Similar to how many deadly scuba-accidents aren't a single-failure, but rather multiple things going wrong at once, this accident required multiple lapses of safety considerations and a neglectful crew.

The compounding failures are likely a symptom of the company, the equipment, and it's employees being cheap and lazy. For the people who still do business with them, that's quite a gamble. If they screwed fire-safety in at least 4 ways, what's to say that regulator or tank you're renting is properly maintained? What's to say their lazy and possibly underpaid employees are properly keeping an eye out for surfacing divers, or are properly trained for medical emergencies? What's to say one of their boats doesn't just sink from poor maintenance? There's a lot more to safety than just fire-safety.

I didn't read the entire thread, but I'd also say the "video cameras everywhere uploading video" idea is a little confusing to me. What's the point of that? It would be really expensive (at this time) and unlikely to save lives. There are also privacy issues, depending on where you put cameras. There are much more realistic and affordable things we could focus on, like multiple-escape routes, fire-alert systems, etc.

 

[Bob DBF]

First on my list would not be cameras, it would be proffessional f'n sailors. It may not have have changed anything on the Conception, but... Next would be smoke/fire detectors that alarm on the bridge and throughout the boat rather than just in the compartment affected. Then see what can be done for a better secondary escape route.

Cameras have their place, but if no one is watching them... A roving watch or one in the pilot house watching the cameras, or hire another crew and have both. Having video uploaded to wherever is for after the fact, or the 10 o'clock news, but it doesn't improve your safety on the boat. Put the money where it will make the passengers safer.

 

[KenGordon]

First on my list would not be cameras, it would be proffessional f'n sailors. It may not have have changed anything on the Conception, but... Next would be smoke/fire detectors that alarm on the bridge and throughout the boat rather than just in the compartment affected. Then see what can be done for a better secondary escape route.

Cameras have their place, but if no one is watching them... A roving watch or one in the pilot house watching the cameras, or hire another crew and have both. Having video uploaded to wherever is for after the fact, or the 10 o'clock news, but it doesn't improve your safety on the boat. Put the money where it will make the passengers safer.

Cameras can be used to keep people honest. Suppose they ran 24/7 and were only uploaded in port. Now we’d know much more about the typical behaviour of the crew. The approving authorities could choose to randomly review actual behaviour and decide if it complies.

basically though, the problem seems to be people being cheap and really low safety compliance, particularly ignoring the spirit of regulation and gaming them, for example by using grandfathered boats.