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Never a good look when the entire crew survives and their paying customers are all dead. I'm sure authorities will take a close look at this operator.
FWIW, I know several people who've dived from that boat. (One of my good friends and shipmates was on anchor watch in San Pedro, heard the radio communications from the first mayday. <shudder>) Anyway, the operator is considered a solid, reliable company.
It could be something as banal as crew being abovedecks working and passengers below sleeping. Boat fires are horrifying, rapid events and if the fire kept the crew from getting fire hoses started (not an entirely trivial exercise), they would be left with hand-held extinguishers.
We'll have to see, the USCG are really very good at finding this sort of thing out.
Last edited by Dane_in_LA; 09-02-2019 at 04:14 PM..
I've never been on a boat that size, but 30+ seems like a LOT to be packed in there sleeping.
Not that exceptional, really. I sail with 30 students and 8 crew on a 90-ft hull, and we're considered fairly spacious, by nautical standards - standing-height overall, for instance.
Little if any O2 on a dive boat. Mostly none though you might find some on a big boat in the medicine cabinet. Divers use compressed air mostly, certainly on this class of dive, and the only use for O2 would be helping someone who came back on board with a breathing problem.
The interesting thing is that we still do not know the fate of the 34. One would have expected divers in the water immediately on the fire going out which would have been around dawn when the boat sank. Any hope for those trapped would be gone in a couple of hours. But there is no real problem getting divers down once the boat sunk. The hope is that some of the trapped have found an air pocket. But that will not last long. At best the divers should have been able to tell if they were all done for in the cabin by a little after sunrise. Seems unbelievable we do not know their fate 12 hours later.
Note these divers would virtually all have had wet suits and snorkel/scuba gear. Even if they could not access the gear virtually all would have been able to easily swim ashore. And there would have been a number of people in such a crew capable of towing a couple of people ashore.
Sounds to me like they burned to death or drowned unable to escape the berthing area. That absolutely should not have happened.
An explosion of some sort? The O2 tanks maybe? And 5 crew, who were presumably above deck, escaped in a dingy and just left the passengers belowdeck to die with no attempt to suppress the fire?
NO! They tried and tried to extinguish it but it just kept reigniting. O2 probably.
Little if any O2 on a dive boat. Mostly none though you might find some on a big boat in the medicine cabinet. Divers use compressed air mostly, certainly on this class of dive, and the only use for O2 would be helping someone who came back on board with a breathing problem.
Yes, of course, you're correct. I misspoke when I said O2. I meant dive tanks with the compressed air. Thanks for pointing that out.
And as far as the crew being above deck, perhaps that in and of itself is not all that unusual either, especially if any of them were required to be on watch.
NO! They tried and tried to extinguish it but it just kept reigniting. O2 probably.
Nope. Smells of a fuel fire. Burning diesel leaking from a tank or ruptured line. And the problem is the boat burns.
The boat crew was up getting ready to prepare breakfast. Classically dive boats start early while the seas are calm and feed the guests as soon as the sun is up. Takes a little prep and work to feed 39 people. And they will generally be very hungry. Dive boats do that to you.
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