Scuba Shack's Boat Get Wet Sinks in Key Largo

[DennisS]

What is the reason for all this conjecture without any real information?

If there was real information, people would know what happened, there wouldn't be any speculation or conjecture if people had real information.

 

[Blue Sparkle]

What is the reason for all this conjecture without any real information?

"Why the [as you put it] conjecture?" Jax has pretty much said what I think.

"Without any real information"? I'm not sure I understand that. Real information I have:

1) The boat sank, one person was killed, another seriously injured.

2) We know where and when.

3) We have seen photos of the boat, so we can see some of its design features.

4) We have read a report (granted, newspaper, so we don't take it as gospel) of some preliminary Coast Guard info.

5) We had an early report from a prior captain [since redacted] who felt there was a problem with the hatch (and from what we can tell, the hatch played a role in the tragedy).

Based on this information, we can talk about what might have happened (note: might). We can discuss how boats are designed, and how they thus behave. This is physics. We can talk about the role maintenance (or lack thereof) might have played. I imagine some people are interested. I know I am.

In addition:

A) The Scuba operator company owners have apparently closed up shop, so we probably won't be hearing from them

B) We *have* heard from the closest relative of the deceased diver (her husband) and he basically gave us his blessing to think about it, postulate, and try to learn from it. Not that we even need that, but it's nice to have.

So I guess I don't see it the same way as you. I have tried to be amply clear when I'm speculating, so that it is not taken as fact.

Blue Sparkle

 

[Tanked]

Your Mom may have stretched the truth a bit... Al Tillman is instructor #1 and the first female instructor here in the USA was Dottie Frazier...
Its called Mediastinal emphysema, Pneumothorax is another condition related to DCS...

Pneumothorax usually leads to subcutaneous emphysema. And It's not really related to DCS. More like barotrauma. I have never heard of Mediastinal emphysema. I have heard of a pneumomediastinal. Perhaps that's what you meant.

 

[conchrandy]

What is the reason for all this conjecture without any real information?[/QUOTE

Gross negligence, the incident speaks for itself. Suggestion-read the posts, all of them.

 

[Jax]

What is the reason for all this conjecture without any real information?

Learning. Critical thinking. Understanding possibilities.

Some of us enjoy that. It broadens our horizons.

Pneumothorax usually leads to subcutaneous emphysema. And It's not really related to DCS. More like barotrauma. I have never heard of Mediastinal emphysema. I have heard of a pneumomediastinal. Perhaps that's what you meant.

Fergitaboutit!

Haven't you noticed that Brendon jumps on any little bit of nothing he can, so he can try to make the other look stupid? It makes him feel powerful, and like a man!

 

[Tanked]

Fergitaboutit!

Haven't you noticed that Brendon jumps on any little bit of nothing he can, so he can try to make the other look stupid? It makes him feel powerful, and like a man!

Who's Brendon?

 

[spoolin01]

I am going to respectfully disagree with this statement.

A dive boat with an open transom is as safe as the components employed to allow water washed on the deck through the open transom to also leave the deck back through the open transom as well as scuppers.

A key component is to have a deck with hatches that close properly, seal properly, and are secured properly so they do not open accidentally.

It seems from this latest report that the hatches were not secured properly, and let a significant amount of water into the bilge. This is what most likely will be major factor in this boat sinking.

Even if the deck hatches were not sealed properly, but were secured properly, we most likely would not be having this conversation.

To Pat Rhoads:

Please accept my sincere condolences. My Mother was the first NAUI certified SCUBA instructor, and has taught 1000's of people to dive over the years. I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt her #1 concern was for the safety of her students and certified divers. She never had any incidents with her students. But this was back in the day when there was a minimum of 40 hours of class work alone, and you walked away actually knowing what Subcutaneous Emphysema and Mediastinal Pneumothorax was. She burned safety into my brain too. A complete and thorough check of the dive boat was completed before we left to pick up passengers. And there were cases where even as little as a bilge pump, of which there were four, along with a manual whale gusher, or spare VHF radio did not work, and we did not dive that day.

I wish you the best going forward.

You make an important point, I should have made it clearer it wasn't an indictment of transom doors out of context. As has been pointed out, plenty of boats have holes in the hull above waterline (many even have them below) that don't unduly compromise their reserve flotation (not sure that's the accepted technical term), but in the end it IS all about 'freeboard'. If you have a large boat, sealed cockpit, secondary sill guarding the companionway belowdecks, it's a slightly different matter, because those contribute to freeboard. It's also the case that without a transom door, even those boats would have more freeboard, and take longer to sink when taking water through a hull breach (absent other holes in the hull just above waterline). That's not a reason to run from any boat with a transom door, but it is inescapably part of the flotation equation, and in some cases a pretty crippling one.

In this case, the boat was small with the transom sill only inches above the waterline. Less reserve in case of need - small hull volume, low freeboard. It also may be that the cockpit deck wasn't sealed. I'd venture to say many 30 yr old workboats no longer have the watertight integrity they once did. Breaches in the decks or basin are made to run wiring, hoses, and such, cutouts are made for new systems that are later removed but perhaps not resealed, decks are cut up to gain access for repairs and installations, and not resealed, the cockpit design is reworked to suit a new purpose, considerable additional weight is added from various sources. Such things are often noted in the post-mortems done when boats have sunk.

I was in an Albin 27 tuna fishing out beyond the Farallones one beautiful and thankfully calm day. That is generally considered a pretty seaworthy boat around here. This one had a transom door, and while the deck sealing was intact, the door sill is only about 10" or maybe less above waterline, there's a motor box cover that 'seals' from the tension of those short T-shaped bungees and no or little sill that I recall, and a sill to belowdecks that's maybe 6" above the deck, about the height of the transom door sill. The owner had a chronic leak belowdecks - one of many bilge pump and discharge throughhulls just above waterline perhaps - which didn't always pass much water, but was bad on this trip. By the time we noticed water in the bilge, which was probably less than 12" deep, the transom sill was around 4" above water and wind chop was splashing water into the cockpit. It was surreal to watch two guys flylining anchovies, apparently oblivious to the situation, and the owner upside down in the bilge trying to get the pumps to do something useful, and realize that in just a few more minutes the boat would start taking on water like mad - despite the gunwales still being 2 ft above water - and go down in seconds. He got the pumps running - and we got on the manual pump that's installed in the cockpit wall of Albins - and got the water level down. One of the other guys refused to ever go out again on the boat. I bought the biggest Rule pump I could find, put heavy gauge wire with terminal clamps on it, and a long collapsible discharge hose, and packed it in a valise I can carry. In that boat, the batteries are forward and raised so the terminals are close up under the deck sole, so we didn't lose power despite a foot or more of water in the bilge. I also take my 7mm fullsuit every time I go out in a small boat.

The take home lesson from that was that freeboard design and preservation is pretty critical, and relying on de-watering systems - especially the pathetic ones on small boats - to compensate for the leakiness permitted for convenience or other considerations, is a recipe for courting disaster.

 

[The Chairman]

With all this speculation going on it's important to point out a few things.

The forward berth was very small, and the door to it was closed when the boat was raised. No one was stuck in the forward berth. It's not easy for one person to get in there, much less two.

From witnesses at scene, the original hinges holding the hatch/seat/tank holder had been replaced with much smaller hinges. Those had ripped free, probably when the boat sank stern first. It was this hatch/seat/tank holder that had pinned Aimee and Amit. None of this answers why the boat sank but unsecured hatches have been all but ruled out. They became detached as the boat sank: not before.

 

[Blue Sparkle]

The forward berth was very small, and the door to it was closed when the boat was raised. No one was stuck in the forward berth. It's not easy for one person to get in there, much less two.

Agreed. It's hard to imagine customers being in the cuddy at all on a dive trip, and it certainly does not sound like anyone was in it during the incident. Knowing about the floating bench-hatch, it's not hard to imagine being trapped in the boat with it upright, even when above-decks. Especially if one were in the forward area. Oh, maybe if I said "forward area" earlier, it sounded like I meant in the forepeak/cuddy? If so, sorry, I should have been more clear. By "forward" I would have meant the the forward cockpit, "pilothouse area," where there is a small roof).

From witnesses at scene, the original hinges holding the hatch/seat/tank holder had been replaced with much smaller hinges. Those had ripped free, probably when the boat sank stern first. It was this hatch/seat/tank holder that had pinned Aimee and Amit. None of this answers why the boat sank but unsecured hatches have been all but ruled out. They became detached as the boat sank: not before.

Oh, so you're saying that the hatch/bench was completely secured (e.g. hinges on one side and dogs or some sort of latch on the opposite side), but that during the sinking the hinges broke loose, and thus rendered the dogs/latches pointless and so the hatch came completely free? I could easily imagine that. Perhaps the hinges or their fastenings were inadequate.

(Without that failed hinge information I was thinking that perhaps there were hinges on one side and then only gravity holding down the other side, as I have seen many hatches like that. Basically, permanently unsecured [vs. just plain unsecured, i.e. having latches that are left open].)

 

[Wookie]

You make an important point, I should have made it clearer it wasn't an indictment of transom doors out of context. As has been pointed out, plenty of boats have holes in the hull above waterline (many even have them below) that don't unduly compromise their reserve flotation (not sure that's the accepted technical term), but in the end it IS all about 'freeboard'. If you have a large boat, sealed cockpit, secondary sill guarding the companionway belowdecks, it's a slightly different matter, because those contribute to freeboard. It's also the case that without a transom door, even those boats would have more freeboard, and take longer to sink when taking water through a hull breach (absent other holes in the hull just above waterline). That's not a reason to run from any boat with a transom door, but it is inescapably part of the flotation equation, and in some cases a pretty crippling one.

The term you are looking for is reserve buoyancy, and that is the critical term, not freeboard. Look, a submarine sinks but doesn't kill it's crew because it has reserve buoyancy. A vessel can easily be designed to have reserve buoyancy and have decks awash in through the transom all day long as long as there is reserve buoyancy to keep the vessel floating. Even in the story you relate about the Albion 27, the issue was not buoyancy or freeboard, it was maintenance. The owner let a leak go that wasn't designed into the boat, yet he was able to overcome the leak on normal days with the bilge pump. On the day the bilge pump didn't act right, the boat was in trouble, because it lost it's reserve buoyancy. It's reserve buoyancy was lost to excess water in the bilge.

In Coast Guard jargon, vessels don't founder, they lose their reserve buoyancy.

From witnesses at scene, the original hinges holding the hatch/seat/tank holder had been replaced with much smaller hinges. Those had ripped free, probably when the boat sank stern first. It was this hatch/seat/tank holder that had pinned Aimee and Amit. None of this answers why the boat sank but unsecured hatches have been all but ruled out. They became detached as the boat sank: not before.

Let me see if I got this right. Are you saying that the only hatch that allowed water in the deck was the engine hatch/cover/bench? There were no other secured or unsecured oval hatches in the deck for access to the lazarette or somewhere else that came loose as the vessel sank? I'm not questioning you, I'm trying to get it right in my head.