Safety vs. customer satisfaction

[David Leach]

I appreciate the warm welcome to ScubaBoard. I am reading obsessively!

Its sickens me what could have happened. It has happened in the past where some boats capsized and people drowned.

At one point, while we were motoring perpendicular to the waves, and the boat was rolling really hard, I thought to myself... if we lose power right now, this boat is very likely getting swamped and going down. Less than a minute later is when "smoke" billowed from belowdecks and I thought "engine fire" and "get ready to swim." Thankfully, it was just the busted fire extinguisher I already mentioned, not actually smoke. That moment is one I will never forget!

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

That moment is one I will never forget!

Mine - I wrote this up on a dive in NJ...

Ok so I will see if I can do this justice...

This morning I got up at 3:30am grabbed an apple, some cash and started heading down to the xxx xxx to go dive the Tolten. It was about 67 with fog all the way down. I forgot how long it was to get to Barnegat Light on LBI - sheesh long drive but I stopped at the WaWa and got a big danish and a cup of coffee in Ship Bottom.

Proceeded to Barnegat Light and parked 30 mins early so I grabbed a quick shut eye.

Got up from the nap and folks were starting to pack the boat. So I too grabbed my gear and picked a spot. It seemed like there were 8 to 10 on the boat.

Before we left the slip we signed all the discloser forms. I met a few folks that I had dove with this year on the Stolt and Algol so we talked it up a bit. I also met a few new folks and one although a bit older was obviously a vacation diver and was trying his hand at New Jersey diving. His name happened to be Mike but he was a quiet spoken guy and very curious about NJ Diving. So I obliged and gave he a rough idea on the conditions and visibility that we could expect. It was mentioned we may not get to dive the Tolten due to the viz so the Captain was mulling a few other spots...

So for those that have not been to Barneget Inlet - the currents can be vicious and fast - sand bars are constantly moving and the dredges cannot seem to keep up with nature. Because of that you need to be extra careful with the Inlet.

It was heavy fog and you could not see either Inlet rocks if you were in the middle. The fog would let you see 100 feet then 500 feet and then 100 feet again... very odd but it is fall and the weather is very unpredictable now.

We were crisscrossing back and forth in the inlet finding the deeper water. Two boats were behind us and the last one happened to be a Sheriffs boat... As we proceeded we did the best we could in the inlet with all the fog. So I was talking with the new guy and we just passed the last of the visible Inlet rocks with a few brave fishermen on the jetty and a boat that was drift fishing close to the end of the inlet...

All I know is we were maybe 50 feet past the north jetty and the captain started going north (turning port side) which in normal conditions is dangerous because you never know where the jetty rocks end - they continue under the water and in high tide sometimes you can make it. I low tide you can never make it...

Well at about 6:45am I dont know which tide it was but it wasn't high tide... :-( We hit the first rock and I said - oh boy we just hit the jetty... Those around me looked at me like I was crazy and said WHAT? in disbelief and then we hit the second and third in rapid succession. Then they looked at me as we pitched up and forward... I looked back and said "Hold On"....

So let me stop for a moment - as I was processing hitting the jetty I thought hmmmmnnn we did not get a briefing on where the life jackets were... None were in sight by the way...

Ok - at this point we were sitting and swaying on the rocks and waves were starting to push us over... I looked down and could see the jetty rocks about 2 to 3 feet below the surface... This was beginning to turn interesting... So the mate yelled to the fisherman boat and the Sheriff to pull us off the rocks... Meanwhile the Captain was gunning it forward and in reverse to try and loosen us off the rocks...

The Sheriff stopped and put on his blue lights in the fog and I started to laugh because I knew that was not good - it was very clear he was not coming anywhere near the rocks... ha ha ha - Now What?

So the Captain continued his forward and reverse maneuvers the deck hand was checking the hatches for water and I was still looking for a life jacket - I opened a couple cabinets and benches - nope none to be found...

Now mind you no one was giving orders or at any point was I about to jump for and swim to the jetty rocks... but I was very interested in what was going on...

We finally got off the rocks in about 10 minutes time due to a good wave that pushed and lifted us off and over the rocks... now we were on the other side of the jetty that we had just hit...

The mate says it looks like no water made it in the boat and we proceed back on course... Yeah - I know WTH? But I thought ok this is a new one maybe he knows what he is doing??? And this would be funny if we dive and the boat sinks... LOL

So we went about 1/4 mile and it is obvious the boat is not behaving like it should - so we did a 180 and headed back to the slip. We joked a bit about being able to dive a fresh wreck and being able to pick it clean. But I can tell you when the gear went sprawling across the deck - including tanks as well as one diver - it got everyone's attention. But because I spoke up everyone thought I knew what was going on... They started asking me how bad was the damage... lol

All I could do is say look I own a boat and this is not good but I don't know what the damage is...

Anyway - next time you get on a boat do me a favor - listen or ask where are the life jackets...

 

[Bob DBF]

SCUBA tanks came loose and crashed across the deck, with divers dodging equipment and the crew scrambling to keep people and equipment safe. The freshwater bucket (trash can) was overturned. The drinking water cooler came loose and fell to the deck.

This is my problem with the dive op, their gear and tank stowage should not allow anything to be adrift on the deck, it's a good way to get someone seriously injured.

I have been on boats in similar cirmstanses and other than insuring that the divers had properly secured the tanks when they stowed them on the rack, the crew helped the divers secure their gear properly, which they had been advised, in detail, to do before the boat left the dock. On one particular ride, if something was going to break loose, it would have. I love a professional crew.



Bob

 

[Steve_C]

I was bothered by all the stuff breaking loose. boats can handle more than people can IF the boats are properly equipped and appropriate for the seas likely to be encountered.

 

[Graeme Fraser]

I'm lucky enough to have been out with some great skippers with incredible skills, but everyone makes mistakes and things can / do go wrong.

This is not a first hand account but it did happen to a very close buddy and I dived on the subsequent wreck a couple of years later.

He was on a Red Sea liveaboard some years back and the skipper moared for the afternoon in the lea of a reef along with two other boats. Expecting rough weather they lashed four lines. Later another Liveaboard arrived and moared on the side of the reef with only one line attached and 20 divers kitted up and went in for the afternoon dive. In the meantime, my buddy's Skipper is gesticulating and shouting in Arabic along with the other crew. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the wind changed and the Liveaboard with one line started to drift slowly towards the reef. The skipper saw what was happening and started the engines and began reversing up. The crew then started screaming that divers were starting to surface behind the boat. Luckily the Skipper heard and killed the engines in time, but then had no option but to run aground on the reef. The boat went down, but thankfully no-one was hurt or killed. Zodiacs from the other motherships picked up the crew and divers from the water and everyone was safe. Even though my mate wasn't on the affected boat he said it was terrifying to watchw and seemed to happen in slow Mo. Apparently some of the later surfacing divers actually saw their boat sink from underwater.

Anyway a few years later we dived on this reef and saw her upright on the sea bed. A very strange and unsettling feeling.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Good story. And an even better lesson. As a future dive op owner, I’ll take all of this into account on how I set up my boat to hold everything down in conditions worse than when I’ll turn around and give everyone a refund.

 

[Neilwood]

A few of these are a good reminder about listening to the BOAT briefing as well as the dive briefing. If anything happens on the way to or from the dive site you really do want to know what the emergency procedures are and where life jackets are.

If you don't get a boat briefing, pick another boat because I am pretty sure the captain of that boat is not doing his job right and if he skips that briefing, what else is he skipping???

 

[Rred]

There are good captains and bad, this is why it is important to know the credentials and rep of whoever will be taking the boat out, as well as the shop or operator owner.

But on cancelling dives...every one of them has different policies and it really doesn't matter what those policies are--as long as they are up front about it and you can find out before you sign up! From the captain's point of view, yeah, fuel is expensive and so is everything else, so going out without a full boat isn't good--but if they cancel because there aren't enough divers, they've just screwed it for the ones who did show. Very few are honest enough to say "We go even with 1 diver" or to say "we cancel if..." so you can at least plan ahead. And then there are a few boats known as gorilla divers and similar names, where the boat goes out regardless of weather conditions, as long as the inlet is open. They build a faithful audience of divers who don't care if the water is rough--they want to go. And they're usually smart enough to make sure everyone knows in advance, that's the policy.

It is the guys who mumble about "maybe" and give you no clue what is in store, that really can ruin the day for everyone.

The weathercasts, at their best, still can be radically wrong. Sure. But the guys who just say "Give me a day out of your life, give me your money, we'll see"...those are the guys who just shouldn't be in the business.