Yukon tangent thread

[The Brandon]

How about telling us what you do know, instead of telling us we're 90% wrong but not offering details?

This is the way this board (incidents and accidents) works and, for that matter, how human beings work. We're inquisitive, suspicious, and generally we jump to conclusions based on the information we have at hand, factual or not.

Simply because I have been told by the authorities not to make public statements. That is how it works with death investigations. I could care less how it works here on SB. I am also personal friends with the crew involved since I run a dive boat here and out of respect for them I will not. Perhaps one of the divers who was onboard will chime in if they have not been warned by the USCG already.
The only reason I posted in the beginning was to try an stop the speculation. But that is not how divers operate here. This thread has gotten way out of control and most of the posts have nothing to do with the accident. I wish mods could have better control bit their job is impossible here.

Captain Brandon
Technical Rebreater Dive Master

 

[fjpatrum]

I've seen a lot of toxic comments in here. And a lot of wars going on. It seems like more of the comments are about attacking one another than remembering that one of our community did not make it back. Perhaps these toxic attacks should be taken up in another thread, I had to wade through 22 pages of that stuff, only to find that there was very little direct information here. Then again, after 22 pages, my comments may be lost, because nobody wants to wade through that long of a thread.

Perhaps I can offer some additional direct insight here, aside from the one other member here who was on the boat at the time of the accident.

I was on the Humboldt Saturday morning diving the Yukon. When I checked in, my C-Card was checked, but no requests for a log book (although I do have one and make a copy of my log book entries into my desktop computer).

Anita was the captain, and I think her crew was Anne. The boat was charted by Sport Chalet for the morning session, and most of the divers on the boat were taking wreck diving classes.

The visibility was about 30 feet, and there was no problem with current. I actually only saw 58 degrees on my computer, up at the wheelhouse.

After we came up from our dive, Anne filled our tanks (we brought our own). Although she was trying to be helpful, she did make the mistake of trying to connect my first stage onto my tank valve while my mask and gloves were still hooked around the valve.

Before we left the site, there WAS a roll call, although it was the Sport Chalet representative that performed the roll call. Before the dive, they also asked if anybody needed a buddy, and one diver did and was hooked up.

What I can also add, is that while each diver seat on the boat had a number for the tank position, there was no accounting for those positions. In other words, on one of my favorite boats on SoCal, the Magician, every diver has an assigned tank number, and you call out your number as you go in the water, and call out your number as you board, AND they do a roll call after ever diver has come up. The Humboldt crew did none of the tank number accounting that morning, for better or worse.

I might also add that the instructor for the wreck diving class that I was in says he has over 400 dives on the Yukon, and he has an absolute rule about the rule of thirds - 1/3 air for descent and diving, 1/3 for returning, and 1/3 for reserve.

Do I find it scary that the boat left without accounting for all of the divers? Absolutely! I've been thinking about it the last two days! Especially since I am going to Belize in a few weeks, and have concerns over whether the dive operators down there do close accounting of divers in the water.

Perhaps we as a community should enlist our lawmakers to ensure that there are standards in the US, and even abroad, for accounting for divers on a charter boat. I am not a fan of more regulation, but this seems like such a small thing to ask of dive charter operators, and at no cost to taxpayers.

I agree that if he was OOA, it is unlikely he could have been rescued even if the boat had stayed on site, given the size of the Yukon (366 feet) and the visibility (30 ft).

It is a sad thing that one of our community passed away while doing something he loved. Let's pay some respects to this poor individual's family.

Thank you for your post. I only have one question... if there was a role call HOW did the boat leave without all divers? With a role call it should have been immediately obvious there was a missing diver.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Thank you for your post. I only have one question... if there was a role call HOW did the boat leave without all divers? With a role call it should have been immediately obvious there was a missing diver.

Unless a role call is done properly, I would think it would be fairly easy to mess up (even though I think it should be easy to do correctly as well). It is possible that people were not paying full attention and someone claimed present for more than one person because their names sounded alike. Maybe someone talks with their hands and the person taking the role call thought a motion was a statement of identity. I think that there are lots of things that could go wrong, but they are all avoidable IMO.

 

[boulderjohn]

Edit: I think I misunderstood a post.

 

[SC_Hoaty]

I think the wording of the post may have been a little confusing. Garyw90 was on that boat on a different trip--not the one on which the fatality occurred--when the roll call was taken. In addition, the roll call was taken by the group that chartered the boat, not the boat crew. That group probably would have been calling the roll of the people within its group.

This does not tell us what happened on the day in question.

Unless I misunderstood.

Garyw90 = AM trip
Deceased = PM trip

Is this right?

 

[boulderjohn]

Originally Posted by boulderjohn View Post
I think the wording of the post may have been a little confusing. Garyw90 was on that boat on a different trip--not the one on which the fatality occurred--when the roll call was taken. In addition, the roll call was taken by the group that chartered the boat, not the boat crew. That group probably would have been calling the roll of the people within its group.

This does not tell us what happened on the day in question.

Unless I misunderstood.

Garyw90 = AM trip
Deceased = PM trip

Is this right?

That's what I thought.

Now I'm confused, which is why I edited out my post.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

To clarify, garyw90 was on the Saturday morning Humboldt dive trip. The incident in question occurred during the afternoon trip.
We don't know whether the same crew/captain was on-board for both morning and afternoon trips.
We have heard some anecdotal reports (secondhand at best) that the boat failed to conduct a formal roll call at the dive site before leaving for the RubyE wreck, which was to be Dive #2.
Even if this were the case, we don't know whether there were other boats tied into Yukon mooring buoys for the time period that the Humboldt may not have been on-site with the missing solo diver below.

To give out-of-towners more info about the Yukon dive site, it's not a wreck that's several miles out in the middle of the ocean. It's within sight of land. Mission Beach is about a half mile to the east (I would imagine it's swimmable if one were forced to do it). On a typical Saturday afternoon with good dive conditions, several commercial dive ops and private boats will tie up to one of the Yukon moorings. I mention all of this because, although it would be rather annoying to be left behind by a dive op, I wouldn't consider it a matter of life or death for a diver or buddy pair (in good health) to hang onto a mooring buoy at the surface until another boat came along. At times, however, currents at the surface and underwater can be strong in the vicinity. From what I've read about the dive conditions on that Saturday, there wasn't much current and the visibility was excellent (in the 30 ft. range).

 

[fjpatrum]

Simply because I have been told by the authorities not to make public statements. That is how it works with death investigations. I could care less how it works here on SB. I am also personal friends with the crew involved since I run a dive boat here and out of respect for them I will not. Perhaps one of the divers who was onboard will chime in if they have not been warned by the USCG already.
The only reason I posted in the beginning was to try an stop the speculation. But that is not how divers operate here. This thread has gotten way out of control and most of the posts have nothing to do with the accident. I wish mods could have better control bit their job is impossible here.

Captain Brandon
Technical Rebreater Dive Master

Thank you for your response. I wasn't aware that any "gag orders" would apply to people not directly responding or involved in the incident, but I can understand your position.

 

[lamont]

The discussion of the roll call really has nothing to do with this accident.

The roll call just would have alerted the boat earlier that they had a fatality to deal with, not in any way prevented it.

We can have a discussion about it being best practices or something for boats to do this and all the bad things that might go wrong if its not done, but it does not have any bearing on *this* accident. That whole roll call debate should, IMO, get split off into a different thread, since its just a tangential hijack.

This guy drowned on the bottom. Roll calls are completely irrelevant to the accident.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

The discussion of the roll call really has nothing to do with this accident.

The roll call just would have alerted the boat earlier that they had a fatality to deal with, not in any way prevented it.

We can have a discussion about it being best practices or something for boats to do this and all the bad things that might go wrong if its not done, but it does not have any bearing on *this* accident. That whole roll call debate should, IMO, get split off into a different thread, since its just a tangential hijack.

This guy drowned on the bottom. Roll calls are completely irrelevant to the accident.

I think it's entirely appropriate to discuss whether a formal roll call had been conducted prior to the Humboldt leaving the dive site. This could have affected response time for the overdue diver, especially considering that the guy was using an AL80 (as reported in this thread by another diver on the Humboldt).

We don't know whether the victim was able to reach the surface during the incident. News reports state that he was recovered on the sandy bottom but we really don't know what happened prior to that. This is the main reason I'm curious about his dive profile. If he was wearing a computer that was recording time and pressure data, the info would prove to be very useful in determining whether the boat could have done something more to help the diver.