Cape May vessel collision/rescue/sinking

[Down Deep Sportfishing]

Shot 4/28/16 by a friend in the area shortly after. Thankfully the crew is ok.

http://youtu.be/tnGbrxs9Rqg

http://youtu.be/F2-CmfRXubA

[shrimpman steve]

Holy cow! That went down fast. Thank god the crew didn't wait to abandon the vessel!

[Capt. Debbie]

Who hit who? A collision?

Originally Posted by Down Deep Fleet

Shot 4/28/16 by a friend in the area shortly after. Thankfully the crew is ok.

http://youtu.be/tnGbrxs9Rqg

http://youtu.be/F2-CmfRXubA

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.

[Capt. Debbie]

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.

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.

Capt. Frank,

You're right both boats on a clear day in open water have to be partly at fault to have allowed this accident to happen. Hard to believe with radar, clear visibility, open water and relatively calm conditions this happened.

Both boats had a lot to lose, the scallop boat in particular in my opinion considering the potential for their three passengers losing their lives. Just glad everyone survived the ordeal.

Dakota

[Capt. Debbie]

Like the Duckboat run over in broad daylight in the Delaware River off Philly 4 years ago. Both guys cluelessly asleep at the switch. But here no one died.

I would tend to doubt the scalloper has a USCG operators license. Surprisingly most of them do not as it's likely uninspected and definitely not a passenger vessel.

All that electronics works great with someone actually paying attention to it. Eyeballs work well too. Even asleep, you think 5-6 blasts on ship's horn could be heard a few hundred feet away? That was missed too.

Neither boat is all that small and neither is easy to miss seeing from even a mile away. Ironically one boat just altering course on the slow moving boats could have avoided this passing even being an event. NO danger signal to wake the other vessel? Luck saved the careless.

Originally Posted by dakota560

Capt. Frank,

You're right both boats on a clear day in open water have to be partly at fault to have allowed this accident to happen. Hard to believe with radar, clear visibility, open water and relatively calm conditions this happened.

Both boats had a lot to lose, the scallop boat in particular in my opinion considering the potential for their three passengers losing their lives. Just glad everyone survived the ordeal.

Dakota