Unknown Sea Story lob sinks

[bvbellomo]

I was booked twice on the Tillis during covid but never actually went. I liked this operator and was planning on going with them, ironically avoiding Egypt due to concerns over Sudan, Israel, Houthi, etc. This could easily have been me.

The operator website lists this boat as Length 44 m, Width 9 m. Wikipedia lists a "rule of thumb - formula" for boat beam, being L^(2/3) + 1 where L is length in feet. Assuming those are correct, a typical beam would be just over 27.5 feet, and the Sea Story was 2 feet wider. Of course, take anything on wikipedia without cited sources with a grain of salt, but I don't think the beam is overly narrow compared to typical vessels this size. The height does seem unusual to me, and I can't find displacement or draft or anything anything else that could tell anything about stability issues. Most of the news says the boat took a little over 5 minutes to capsize - which seems wrong to me. The boat seems to have been thrown onto its side and then took 5 minutes to sink.

I don't blame the captain and crew for sailing a 44m boat into waves forecast to be 4m tall. I'd assume a boat this big could comfortably handle waves twice that size. Either something was very wrong with the design of the boat, or the forecast, or something else happened the news didn't report - or some combination.

 

[mcohen1021]

ironically avoiding Egypt due to concerns over Sudan, Israel, Houthi, etc. This could easily have been me.

^^^this

And the reason I'm avoiding other destinations (like Maldives) bc I'd be flying over countries firing missiles and rockets to get there

 

[Scared Silly]

I don't blame the captain and crew for sailing a 44m boat into waves forecast to be 4m tall. I'd assume a boat this big could comfortably handle waves twice that size. Either something was very wrong with the design of the boat, or the forecast, or something else happened the news didn't report - or some combination.

You might want to learn about the Douglas Sea Scale. Four meter waves are in the rough category. A boat that size is going to get rocked pretty hard. As such, I would be blaming the captain.

 

[ijdod]

Been reading this thread for a while tonight... Horrible news, I hate to see this.. I agree with a lot of the opinions here, it seems all too common in the Red Sea

I keep thinking, that I couldn't imagine being on a boat with 45 people, much less s scuba lob

Yeh, from experience 15 people you know is already severely pushing the limits of it being relaxed, and even that requires multiple groups and guides.

That said, in the end money comes into it. Many people would love an 8 pax lob, but don't have 8 pax money. (not even going into the economics of the boat itself. Note that for Europe, Egypt is essentially the default cheap dive destination.

 

[Russjstewart]

1975 AUD for 7 night/7 days 19 dives on Sea Story
4355 AUD for 7 nights on Mike Balls SpoilSport oout of Cairns, Austra.Ian registered, surveyed, inspected and AUS certified crew

Looks like diving the Red Sea is cheap

 

[Jai Bar]

One of the last times I was onboard a LOB in Egypt- about a year or so ago, when we docked at the Marina in the last day, we were not allowed to debark and sort of forced for a meeting with a couple of persons who introduced themselves as representatives from CDWS.

The introduction was that there are many unlicensed boat operators and that they are working towards increasing safety standards.

They then followed asking various questions such as whether there were briefings prior to each dive, whether the dive was carried as in the brief, questions about the food quality and so on- not all questions seemed safety-oriented and the whole thing was awkward because both tourists and crew were present, many of us were frequently coming and know the crew.

After some 20 minutes the meeting ended. We were confused, as it was the first time we ever experienced an attempt such as this towards safety awareness in egypt, but many of the questions seemed completely irrelevant. Also I am not sure how much influence, or teeth, the CDWS have and whether boat operators collaborate (inyernal politics) with them. Dive club owner told us later that most of the boats do not have proper license, that many buy the license, and that the whole thing is government trying to get more money. We were surprised at this honesty too, usually you'll never hear locals openly criticize the government, they can get in lot of trouble for that.

 

[Sebs]

I am doing the same boat starting Dec 7th lol. I talked to a person who did it earlier in the summer who indicated to me they had said the crew was very focused on safety.

We were booked on this boat at the end of August but we ended up on a different one (Sindalah) due to plumbing issues on the Ocean Lovers. We had a mix of Ocean Lovers and Sindalah crew and both were great. Zizo the main dive guide is a champ and is very focused on safety.

Edit: But as has been said. Safety can only go so far when the boat is built a certain way...

 

[chillyinCanada]

Red Sea sinking: Diver describes operation to find Egypt boat survivors

An Egyptian diver tells the BBC those he rescued were trapped in their cabins 12m below the surface.

www.bbc.com

 

[Samdive]

We were booked on this boat at the end of August but we ended up on a different one (Sindalah) due to plumbing issues on the Ocean Lovers. We had a mix of Ocean Lovers and Sindalah crew and both were great. Zizo the main dive guide is a champ and is very focused on safety.

Edit: But as has been said. Safety can only go so far when the boat is built a certain way...

Thank you for the informations. I decided not to go, as much as I love scuba diving in the red sea, I am a father of 3 and I don’t want take the risk…

 

[Scared Silly]

Red Sea sinking: Diver describes operation to find Egypt boat survivors

An Egyptian diver tells the BBC those he rescued were trapped in their cabins 12m below the surface.

www.bbc.com

The Egyptian navy is in charge of the rescue operation and the military has kept the survivors away from the media.

I find that disturbing but not surprising. I think I would be asking for a consulate representative.