"The owner of the Truth Aquatics fleet has suspended all operations indefinitely following the Labor Day dive boat fire off the California coast that killed 34 people.
“The company said on its website that it will “dedicate our entire efforts to make our boats models of new regulations” working with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Coast Guard.”
I suspected that the news of the death trap would have wiped out most of their bookings anyway.
Apparently not! Lots were trying to book trips on their other vessels, crazy, huh?
Maybe not so crazy. Until the fire happened, Truth Aquatics had a stellar reputation. If I had a booked passage on one of the other 2 boats and they were still running I would keep it. No question this was a complete fuck up and should never have happened but it was an aberration.
Based on their reputation earned over many trips, I expect them to be smart enough to take preventive steps on their own, to rectify the battery charging set up especially since the source of the fire is pretty much of a given as well as religiously ensure that the crew maintains a roving night watch. As a passenger, I’d probably still sleep with one eye open and cat nap on deck whenever I could but that’s just me.
Newbie divers and landlubbers might be harder to convince.
The article is dated Oct 3. Have they been running and just shut down or did they shut down right after the fire? I thought they would have done so.
They shut down recently. After they had been running tours to where the Conception burned.
Day trips presumably. Unless the passengers were relatives and friends paying their respects, that’s beyond bad taste, it’s just plain morbid.
It was any paying customer. The great reputation they had was mostly due to the previous owner. From what I have seen since this accident, I’m not impressed.
My time in Santa Barbara was in the late 80’s. The 3 boats were known as the Faith fleet. This was right after they built the Conception and the company was growing. I’d heard they were looking for crew. I remember going to the docks to look at the boats. When someone came off one of the boats and greeted me, I told him why I was there.
He welcomed me and offered a tour of one of the boats.
He told me he was captain of the boat he showed me but then added this, which I thought was odd at the time, “Oh I’m not a real mariner, I do this so I can do a lot of diving.”
This stuck with me and is indicative of the mentallity of the crews working on live-aboard dive boats
“I’m not a real mariner…”
That’s…
I don’t know what to say about that.
It’s disappointing is about all I got.
I admire his honesty.