Fritzlerās lawyers will soon relieve him of that cash. Iām surprised at the judge kicking the limited liability issue down the road.
PS After rereading the LA Times article I see that the current case is in State court so it makes sense. Itās out of his jurisdiction.
I would hope the new ālongtimeā owners reconfigure the boats before grabbing money from tourist diversā¦
Hell, iām curious if any existing dive/sportfishing boats (t-boats) in the so cal area have made any modificationsā¦or if they have had any audits and have a plan for near future modifications?
Modifications??? How about posting watches?
And the emergency exits in the dormitory?
Watch rounds could only exceptionally be helpful, if the fire really started with exploding LI-Ion batteries, as supposed.
I grew up in that industry, and luckily most of the boats i worked on were the more āprofessionalā ones so we always had a rover/ round-the-clock watch.
Posting watches? This would be the easiest modification/change to make, and hopefully all the operators who were tempting fate all this time have learned a lesson from observing this horrible, yet preventable loss of life.
Iām more concerned about the not-so-easy and expensive changes that NEED to happen : providing proper and effective means of escape from the sleeping quarters. This is a common pitfall on a lot of these charter boats that has been overlooked for decades.
On some other threads on this topic itās been said that itās solely up to the boat captains to evaluate the operational risk. Maybe that will work for the next couple years while this story is still fresh.
Iāve worked with 100 ton captains. The idea that they are all capable of evaluating high consequence / low probability events and know what the proper countermeasures is ridiculous.