Duty to avoid collision is on both boats.
The tug could avoid and MUST AVOID, AND use horns to "wake" up the scalloper.
99% of accidents both boat are at fault. Tug has more to lose since scolloper skipper probably does not even have a USCG license.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dakota560
Looks to be a clear day, strange. The scallop boat Last Stand appears to have the entire bow section almost sheered off so my guess would be they ran into the tug / barge. The tug was 78 ft long pushing a 400 foot barge, if the 42 foot scallop boat was hit by them I don't think anyone would have survived. The scallop boat was heading in about 6 miles out so maybe the boat was on auto pilot or someone was asleep at the wheel or both, how do you miss almost 500 feet of moving vessel in the shipping channels. Even in that scenario, radar set with an alarm navigating the shipping lanes should have prevented this accident. Someone obviously made a huge mistake, thank God all three people on the commercial boat survived. Appears they were well trained and had the right equipment on board preventing this from being a complete disaster.
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