A split panel of the Ninth Circuit Friday affirmed a California federal judge’s decision to dismiss wrongful death litigation that the families of 34 people killed by a fire on the…
This creates a controlling or mandatory precedent in the 9th Circuit, and a persuasive precedent in the rest of the US.
It has been my experience that the USCG has and never will be found guilty of any wrongful death or other malfeasants. it would set a prescient.
it has been SOP in this country since i don’t know how long.
a case in point: in San Diego about ten years ago a USCG vessel ran over a pleasure craft while patrolling a marine event. a small child and others died, some were injured. The helmsman was charge with dereliction of duty and that was the end of it
I wonder how much blood is on the USCG and ABS hands after the Bouchard incident as well. Heads were turned during many of those inspections over the years.
this suit was a civil action. the attorneys for the plaintiffs had only to discuss the matter with a admiralty attorney to know that this was a waste of time and money for the plaintiffs.
it was noted in last year’s issue of proceeding regarding this matter that that prior to this event, there were only a little over 200 835’s issued to vessel in this type of business. after this event the CONTIP sent the inspectors back out and the wrote more than 2000 835’s
I am surprised that the COTIP was not reassigned. as that is usual and event less catastrophic and with no loss of life
He ran the boat the same way that he had run it for 25 years. The same way every other dive boat in that industry was run. He had no experience anywhere else; it was all he knew.
The COI required a night watchman, a requirement that had been ignored by everyone in that business for 25 years because the USCG did not require enough crewmen for there to be a night watchman.
None of this matters in court. He was the captain. The owners won’t be sharing his prison cell. Neither will the reckless USCG inspectors.
Exxon Valdez short of crew due to USCG, USCG caused that spill due to the result of their actions
( which is typically doing what the owners tell them to do)
when I first started my career in the early 80”s there were warrant officers who worked full time in the inspection department and they new their stuff. However, the USCG got int into their heads that the inspectors were getting too chummy with the vessel owners.
so, they changed it so that inspectors were rotated through and these personnel were usually of lower rank.
for the most part they followed ABS around and learned from observation, not from experience. As time went on they sent the rookies to ABYC school for 3 days of review of the ABYC standards which culminated in an open book test.
several years before my retirement they would send the shave tails down for inspection with me, mostly unclassed barges that needed temporary permits to sail.
I suppose that this was a compliment to me due to my knowledge and experience with dead ship and unclassed barge tows.
when one rookie asked me what a sponson tank was, I knew what I was dealing with.
I speculate this type of recruit may have inspected the dive boats, six pac boats and other vessels of this size and service
Not much has changed regarding fatigue. There is a lot of new paperwork- — that generally just gets pencil whipped on most tugs.
The typical USCG issued COI ( specifying “safe manning”) for a tug only requires four men: 1 Master, 1 Mate, and 2 deckhands.
A lot of tugs have exactly 4 men, many have 5, a few have 6. The small number of tugs that are SOLAS compliant have more crew.
I remember the old WWII era tugs we sailed during the 1970’s. We had 10 men: 1 master, 2 mates, 1 chief engineer, 2 asst eng, 2 ABs , 1 OS, and 1 cook.
Haven’t ships become much much larger with much smaller crews?
Other issues was fire detectors not on a circuit so that the fire alarm would sound in the wheelhouse, both exits from passenger berthing were into the same space.
