Duck Boats

There are dangers in any activity in life. Even staying at home you can have an aircraft crash into your home. Driving to the store is risky.

Companies and people should take necessary precautions to keep activities as safe as reasonably possible.

 

Some questions on why the life jackets weren’t being worn. I think they should have been required once the wind picked up. Any style boat without adequate accessible lifejackets becomes a death trap.

Judging by how many of them there are opposed to how many actual deaths they’ve caused I would say the problems are inadequate maintenance, and operator error. Not the duck boats themselves.

 

Duck boats are perhaps more statistically safe than cars.

Perhaps we should ban all modes of transportation by motorized vehicle and go back to God made means.

 

My question was why did they head out in big storm, and where were the floaters/life support vests on the boat?

 

The water was calm when they left. The storm came on the return.

 

There had been a severe thunderstorm watch for hours, and a severe TS warning for the area was raised either just prior or just after the ducks headed out. Like most things that try to do two very different jobs, the duckboats aren't very good at either. They're fine in smaller places (I don't think the Boston ducks ever go more than a few hundred feet offshore) but clumsy in any rough water. Like many tragedies, the causes of this one will probably come down to a series of poor decisions that, individually, don't look all that bad.

 

If we stayed in for every severe weather warning, nothing would get done. Sometimes, accidents happen.

Ecc 11:4 He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.

 

It wasn't the duckboats fault, it was the water's fault.

BAN ALL WATER IMMEDIATELY!!!!!!!!1!!!

and

 

https://abcnews.go.com/US/dead-missouri-duck-boat-accident/story?id=56704420
A survivor of the tragedy, who lost nine of her family members in the accident, says the captain of the boat told her family not to worry about life jackets, Fox affiliate WXIN reported.

In my opinion, under these conditions, not commanding that life-jackets be deployed is a criminal act.

Most (maybe all) recreational watercraft are required to have "positive flotation". There are methods to insure a "duck boat" will not sink to the bottom of a body of water!

 

I looks to me like the waves took everyone by surprise. Did the warning predict hurricane conditions?

 

Boats sink. Ban all of them.
Cars wreck, ban all of them.
Is a duck boat statistically less safe than boats or buses?

 

All boats have positive flotation. If they didn't, they would not be boats. Smaller boats have what you refer to as "positive flotation." Big boats do not have what you call "positive flotation."

 

Four and six-foot waves?

It's a tragic accident, and those in the know said life jackets would have trapped everyone in the boat.

 

Not quite. I think the warning included the potential for winds up to 70 mph. The way wind was ripping spray from wave tops suggest at least 50s, maybe 60+ mph as that video progressed.

 

Thanks.

 

Here's the deal: everyone will miscalculate at some point: bus drivers, plane and boat pilots, and mostly car drivers. And sometimes the miscalculations result in death. Mostly for car drivers. No one would be raising Cain if it were a bus that went off the road in the storm. And there may be some contributory negligence on the part of the passengers. No one required them to get on the boat when a storm was imminent.

So, unless there is a history of negligence and reckless behavior on the part of Ride the Ducks, y'all need get off your judgmental high horses.

Is there culpability and liability on the part of Ride the Ducks? Sure, but this stinking despotic call for more government regulation is utterly ridiculous, effeminate and sissified. Soon, it will be illegal to go out your door when the sky is overcast.

Holy freaking cow.

 

The term I've seen used is "reserve buoyancy", generally achieved by airtight or foam-filled compartments large enough to keep the watercraft afloat even when fully swamped. (And as noted above, limited to smaller boats, as it wouldn't be practical to engineer it for a 100,000 ton carrier.) Duck boats as designed don't have reserve buoyancy, but have depended on a powerful bilge pump to stay afloat, quite important during their WW2 use when their thin (for weight-reduction) steel plates were easily punctured by gunfire. The Arkansas tragedy several years back, 13 lives lost, apparently was caused by pump failure in rather calm waters.