Unknown Sea Story lob sinks

[Bookworm11]

You aren't complaining UNTIL you are! When it doesn't work out for you, or worse, you aren't able to complain because you are dead. Sure, you can choose with your wallet to go sail on boats that are unsafe. And even if you sail on boats normally safe, accidents happen. Now you are left with an Egyptian Navy with no rescue divers of its own actively stopping other divers from rescuing people. You have a government not interested in investigating accidents, but covering them up. You have companies making foreign citizens sign statements in Arabic to leave the country phase call blackmailing them as their passports are gone. And you have a noted British agency advising its citizens to avoid sailing on Egyptian liveaboards. Ocean gate told everyone the Titan was safe, and many people believed that. And it was safe until it wasn't. There are too many risk factors here besides the boats alone for me. This is a no brainer - dive Egypt, but not from a liveaboard.

 

[scubajasonr]

This was one of the weirdest parts of my experience on another boat by the same op, a couple of weeks later. The captain never once spoke to the passengers, he was merely a driver of the boat, and likely didn't speak any English. For all intents and purposes, the boat was run by the 3 dive guides, one of them a survivor of the Sea Story. They were the only members of the crew who projected any authority or responsibility. It didn't affect the overall experience in any way, it was just bizarre.

That very much matches my experience on Sea Legend in October 2022. I wrote a trip report on the Red Sea forum after the trip. The crew were very uninterested in the guests, to the point of being unhelpful at times. It is the only boat I have been on where we didn't leave a tip for the crew. There was no one really in charge of the trip, it just seemed to run via discussion amongst the guides. I got the impressions the crew weren't really a team and just there for the money. We were lucky that we had a good bunch of divers on the boat, and the two Egyptian guides were good - one of who was Khattab who recused people for Sea Story.

My other recent liveaboards have been with Emperor and Deep Blue Cruises. Both operators have a 'Cruise Director' running the trip (they are also one of the dive guides), although they will explain that ultimately the captain has the final say on ship safety and route. The captains always have seemed experienced, and an experienced seafaring crew who seem very used to working together. It is clear the crew are looked after by the boat operators, Emperor particularly often referred to the crew as part of the family. Boats are older than the current 'posh' boats, but seem very seaworthy and trips are generally cheaper than the modern boats.

 

[Scared Silly]

Ocean gate told everyone the Titan was safe, and many people believed that. And it was safe until it wasn't. There are too many risk factors here besides the boats alone for me. This is a no brainer - dive Egypt, but not from a liveaboard.

To be pedantic, the Titan had not been adequately tested. As such, safety had been an issue well before the incident.

The issue I would like to see investigated with both the Sea Story and the Triton is the design. As both boats are recent builds the plans should be available for review. I would like to see the designs reviewed by a team of marine engineers. I am not sure a group such as the Marine Technology Society would be appropriate but at this point a design review is needed as to understand how it was or was a contributing factor.

At the same time, the boats still in operation need a similar review. Not just the live-a-boards but even day boats. But not just for suitability but operational safety. That is could any of these boats legally operate in US, EU, UK waters? Which I doubt, but what to what degree are the deficiencies?