More good points.
What do you suppose the chances he ever actually read and understood the inspection certificate.
Fortunately for him, For a guilty verdict. The DA has to prove he did beyond a reasonable doubt.
I think I’m reasonable and I have my doubts.
Unfortunately, most of the public or anyone who had read much probably figure he is guilty.
Even though NTSB report aren’t supposed to be evidence.
I suspect that in many small vessel trades that the COI requirements are subject to creative and flexible interpretations.
Some of the COI requirements are not clearly written or defined which invites creative, cost saving, interpretations by owners. For example: what constitutes a voyage over 600 miles for which the COI requires extra crew? What voyages require Oceans licenses?
Also, owners can often talk some USCG officer at the local OMCI into telling them what they want to hear. Of course if there is a subsequent incident, the USCG officer is probably going to deny every telling the owner that.
To my knowledge the dive boat industry does not have a bad record. The Conception tragedy was an aberration but clearly owners and captains should heed the NTSB’s recommendations regarding fire prevention and detection and the importance of night watches. We know extra layers of paperwork don’t improve safety so I wouldn’t go there. I don’t buy some posters’ premise that captains on 100T boats don’t have the ability to understand the requirements of a COI posted in the wheelhouse. Making a judgment that a rule is onerous and choosing to ignore it is not the same as not understanding it.
On the boats I worked on, the log only kept general records such as ports visited and everyone on board was on set salary plus tips.
I think Tugsailors citing the 600 mile rule on tugs is a good example. Nobody actually up and decided one day to ignore it. Over time from minor infractions with no apparent harm and no enforcement it’s seen as a requirement on paper only.
I think that’s an accurate description of how some things get ignored.
This reminds me of a time I was running a small passenger ferry. At the end of my shift, my relief showed up but one of the required deckhands failed to show. The relief called the office and was told to close off the upper deck and sail short handed. This seemed sketchy since the COI was very clear on the requirements and it was posted under glass in the wheelhouse so we thought we had a solid understanding.
It turns out the COI had extra requirements on the back for sailing short. We had to pull the frame off the bulkhead and remove the glass to verify.
Too bad for Conception’s captain that the rover requirement was on the front.
Rest hour rules are another problem area.
When the USCG through its incompetence, gross negligence, and arm twisting (it doesn’t take much) by the owners issues a Subchapter M COI that only requires a 4 man crew on a coastwise tug, rest hour rules cannot be complied with.
It’s over 500 miles from Seattle to the boundary line of Alaska. If you are going anywhere beyond Ketchikan, the voyage is over 600 miles.
Yet the USCG verbiage on the Subchapter M COI will say something like “600 miles from port.” This in effect gives the owner a license to interpret the COI requirement as “within 600 miles of the nearest port.” In practical effect, the USCG has suspended the 600 mile requirement with the 4 man crew requirement and the standard 600 mile verbiage in the COI.
The result is a COI sanctioned 4 man crew on a 4000 mile, three month round trip voyage. But yes, most owners will put 5 men on a voyage like this, and a few will put on 6 men.
Subchapter M has done more harm than good.
What’s especially baffling in the case you mention is the variability in manning requirements per COI. I have seen a 4 man COI at one company and the exact same class of boat at another has a 6 man COI. The OCMIs do not appear to be applying the rules in an evenhanded manner.
Agree,
The point some of us are making, when charges start being applied after years of blind eyes and non enforcement. Is it fair to judge the one individual when it appears to have been a wide practice.
In the end a Jury will decide.
Variable Manning is quite common on domestic passenger vessels documents.
So quite a few of our vessels have multiple license on the one document.
The crew sise varies depending on how many life saving appliances are manned. On the particular licence.
In recent years passenger control in an emergency has become a higher profile issue often each passenger space has to have someone in charge of passenger control.
Some of our vessels actually had the master designated as in charge of passenger control in a passenger lounge.
What can I say? An inspector approved it.
Good point about passenger control under STCW it is a requirement for crew.
We have ferries that operate outside harbour limits, in darkness with 400 passengers and 4 crew and some think that’s OK.
I can’t wrap my head around the fact that none of the crew was awake, at anchor, with PAX on board.
Even on the GOM crewboats with Captain, Mate, and two deck hands, there was always a live watch, underway, tied off to a rig, or dockside. I wish I had a copy of the COI from back then.
Good point,
Doesn’t make sense to a big ship guy. Where an anchor watch was always kept.
However. Part of my miss spent youth was a year or more accurately a season as Bosun on a small sail training vessel. Uk Long time ago prior to the Marquesa, Registered as a Yacht not a ship regulatory requirements. Virtually Nil.
72 ft Up to 12 trainees, who were early teen to 21, plus up to 6 crew, 1 paid skippers, plus my quasi volunteer job creation scheme Bosun, and Up to 4 leaders Two of who were watch leaders with a YM.
Others were enthusiastic.
So 18 people
Anchored regularly, Anchor watch only Occasionally if weather was bad.
The skipper or I was always up and about for the BBC Shipping Forecast, which he would scribble down on the back of a fag packet. (Please note UK English non offensive)
A skill he deemed essential for any sailor.
I didn’t smoke so some other kind of scrap paper. After the forecast I would, check the anchor again and turn in.
We were taking kids out. Ok only 12 so we weren’t considered a passenger vessel, They were trainees.
If they ain’t passengers, it’s a technicality.
The organization was largely vollentere run and charitable but quite safety conscious.
Looking back, not quite what a professional Mariner would consider a professional organization.
To be fair compared to others of the era, they were pretty good. As far as I knew what regulations existed were complied with. And exceeded.
Nothing bad ever happened. As far as I can recall.
Does it sound familiar.
Not to bash these guys but even worse, passengers reported they were allowed to board and sleep on the boats the night before departure with no crew on board.
The dive boats were using a different system. To mariners outside that system it doesn’t make sense. For the mariners inside the system it did make sense.
thats because business lobbies government and individuals cant
No timesheets. No security round entries in the log. Gotcha…
but the crew testimony will be crucial.
I guess some of you guys made a good point in that some of us are trying to look at this though the lens of what we are accustomed to doing.
It’s been this way a pretty long time. I remember in my late teens early twenties in mid to late 1980’s going on the Conception and other SoCal dive boats and you always showed up the night before, crashed on the boat. Crew showed up in the early hours and you woke up at the dive site, with breakfast waiting… it was the norm… and on the multi day trips…there was never an anchor watch…,this has been the accepted industry standard for over 40 years…
A post was merged into an existing topic: Conception Boat Fire Accident Analysis