What bothers me most about this story?
First the facts:
Candi 1 is a 34-foot Silverton yacht out of Suffolk County which capsized and sank about 10 P.M. on the 4th of July in 21 feet of water off Oyster Bay, on the north shore of Long Island. 27 people were aboard. There were not enough life vests for everyone on board the boat. Three drowned. Advertisements for the yacht indicate it has a maximum capacity of just 15 people. The brothers-in-law operating the boat were not drunk or otherwise impaired. brothers-in-law. They blame the "waves":
First the facts:
Candi 1 is a 34-foot Silverton yacht out of Suffolk County which capsized and sank about 10 P.M. on the 4th of July in 21 feet of water off Oyster Bay, on the north shore of Long Island. 27 people were aboard. There were not enough life vests for everyone on board the boat. Three drowned. Advertisements for the yacht indicate it has a maximum capacity of just 15 people. The brothers-in-law operating the boat were not drunk or otherwise impaired. brothers-in-law. They blame the "waves":
We're coming home and a wave got us and it turned the boat around . . . It just turned the boat and everyone was in the water and chaos.
I can imagine: anytime a significant flotilla of yachts abruptly leave, as in after a fireworks display, there are going to be some wakes. Even in broad daylight, the helmsman will have to be alert and responsive. At night, he's not going to see much before it hits him.
Lots of mistakes committed in this case. But sins of omission and commission on the water is not what really bothers me the most. It's the crappy journalism, Baby.
99% of the headlines and story generated by this unnecessary tragedy refer to the Candi 1 and the Silverton-34 merely as "a yacht".
No mention of 'motor yacht', 'power boat' or 'cabin cruiser'.
Lots of mistakes committed in this case. But sins of omission and commission on the water is not what really bothers me the most. It's the crappy journalism, Baby.
99% of the headlines and story generated by this unnecessary tragedy refer to the Candi 1 and the Silverton-34 merely as "a yacht".
No mention of 'motor yacht', 'power boat' or 'cabin cruiser'.
It all comes down to profiling.
ReplyDeleteYeah! If this story didn't have such a bad ending, you could sum it up as a good start.
Deletejust remember you don't have to have a brain to be a reporter
ReplyDeleteThe findings of the US Coast Guard will take longer but Latitude-38's findings have been published. In part:
ReplyDelete. . . . .As most of you have surely read, a Silverton 37 motor yacht with 27 people aboard capsized and sank in mild conditions. . . . .
As far as we're concerned, the Fourth — more specifically the evening of the Fourth — is one of the spookiest times to be on the water. For not only is it probably the busiest boating night of the year, it's no doubt the evening on which the least experienced skippers and least used boats are most likely to be out. And because taking family and friends on one's boat to watch fireworks is a natural, the boat operators are often distracted. And one or two are smashed.
. . . . . before their findings are released, but we can tell you right now will be that the damn boat was overloaded. Way, way overloaded. As a previous owner of the boat told the press, she would have never taken more than eight people out at once . . . .
Since the boat was loaded with family and friends, it wasn't a case of a greedy charter boat operator illegally overloading a boat. It was a case of an ignorant boat owner probably trying to be nicer to more family and friends than he should have been.
Definitive?
It is tragic that people died on this occasion. I feel that rules and regulations for the power yacht/boat fraternity needs to be more strict and regulated like those for sailing vessels. Ration of idiot sailing vessel owners to idiot power boat owners is something like 1:1 000 000 (a statistic I sucked out of my thumb, make feels right to me, lol)
ReplyDeleteGet them off the power boats and into a maritime class room immediately