Socorro Liveaboard Grounding

[scubafanatic]

This. I wonder how they know the Vortex and everything on board is a total loss already? Seems kind of premature for a GFM, but then again every time I see a GFM my sus meter pings off the scale. If she ends up getting some/all of her stuff back do the people that donated get their money back? Also, the Vortex is one of the most expensive LOBs operating in Socorro if not the most expensive. How is it someone can afford passage on her at ~$700 a day yet needs the diving community to pay for her lost equipment?

Agree with all the other posters on insurance too.. I generally eschew insurance and only buy it to hedge against potentially catastrophic events (home, umbrella, etc.), but if $50k worth of diving equipment was catastrophic to me then I would have an equipment insurance plan through DAN or someone else to cover it. Forget the LOB sinking...that wouldn't even have (probably) entered my mind, but flying with stuff I couldn't afford to replace would give me the willies every time I did it if the loss meant my livelihood was in jeopardy. The probability of the airlines losing it, damaging it or it getting stolen have to be exponentially higher than a LOB sinking.

If you don't waste money on proper insurance that frees up money for funding premium live aboard trips and I guess it's a free country if all the GFM folks want to help pay for someone elses nice vacations or business trips.

 

[Marie13]

If you don't waste money on proper insurance that frees up money for funding premium live aboard trips and I guess it's a free country if all the GFM folks want to help pay for someone elses nice vacations or business trips.

Just looked at the GFM and a bit less than $15K was raised.

 

[cjkotro]

Is liveaboard safety a topic DAN could research, or is this too far out of their scope? Is there an organization who tracks safety on liveaboards? Can Coast Guards around the world create a database? Anyone can post whatever they want on the internet. Where can divers get accurate, non-biased information about a company that's halfway around the world before shelling out big money for their dream dive vacation? Sure, we can read reviews on how someone didn't get their hot towel after a night dive, but how can we find out if a company is going to keep us alive in the middle of the ocean?

 

[wgw04024]

At this point, my thought is everyone's a good outfit until they aren't. I find it hard to think of anything as a 'guarantee' anymore. Reviews are probably the best you can hope for.

 

[John Bantin]

An Opinion about Liveaboard Safety: Undercurrent 07/2022

 

[rongoodman]

The article isn't available unless you subscribe to the newsletter.

 

[John Bantin]

An Opinion about Liveaboard Safety​

who’s driving the boat while you sleep?​

from the July, 2022 issue of Undercurrent​

The luxurious liveaboard, the Pacific Fleet's Vortex, an ex-Canadian Coast Guard vessel, ran into the shallows of a remote island at cruising speed during the night of May 9. It was packed with sleeping divers. An Undercurrent subscriber, Marissa Eckert, who runs Hidden Worlds Diving in Tulum, was onboard the Vortex and told Undercurrent what happened.

"We were crossing from Roca Partida to Socorro Island overnight. The captain had the boat on autopilot. One crew member was on watch from 10-12 pm, and he told us all several times that no one came to relieve him, so he just went to bed.
"The captain was supposed to relieve him but was apparently asleep. It was the crew member's first time on the Vortex working, and he went to bed at midnight and left the boat cruising at 16 knots straight toward Socorro. No one was awake.
"At 1:58 am, we crashed head first into a very tall rock wall on the side of the island, throwing us all from our beds. It trapped at least one couple in their room on the lower deck. Then the current, strong tides, and winds turned the boat and started bashing it into the rocks. We lost power because the lower deck was flooded in less than 30 minutes. All 25 of us abandoned the ship into one life raft and continued to be bashed into rocks in the life raft until the Mexican navy saved us."
What an extraordinary ordeal for the passengers. The vessel is a complete loss, as are the valuables of those onboard. Thankfully nobody paid for this error with their lives, and those rescued were full of praise for the exemplary conduct of the crew after the impact. (Undercurrent mid-May email)
Why am I not surprised by this story? Having spent six months as a dive guide aboard the Red Sea liveaboard Lady Jenny V in the early '90s, I learned a lot about the unwitnessed hazards that can affect those who trust their lives to others while they sleep.
More than once, after taking my turn on watch in the wheelhouse in the middle of the night, I discovered with just a cursory glance at the radar screen that my fellow crewmember, a deckhand from whom I'd taken over, had nearly put us aground in Sudan, or had sent us directly into the path of an oncoming freighter in the busy main shipping lane. (Thanks to the 'arc of visibility' of navigation lights, seeing both red and green of another vessel means you are on a collision course.)
It was self-preservation that drove me to regularly take over the watch of the crewmember who was to follow me, simply because he seemed unable to steer a set course.
So, just how safe are you on a liveaboard?
We've reported the tragic results of fires aboard vessels that were thought to be safely moored and crews were sleeping. The Conception tragedy of 2019 was a case in point.
This has hopefully led to liveaboards today having a roving watch when moored at night. But who's driving the boat when it's underway and you're sleeping?
Without impugning the professionalism of most boat crews, but bearing in mind the long layoffs due to the pandemic leading to possibly hiring less-than-experienced crews, maybe astute groups of passengers should instigate and rotate their own independent watch at night? Unattended helms should never happen.
Passengers book on liveaboard dive vessels just as they book into hotels with the assumption that everything is being done to assure their safety. That assumption may be misplaced.

- John Bantin​

 

[wgw04024]

My gut feeling reading this 'explanation' feels like something doesn't add up. The 'new guy' on the boat doesn't get relief and just 'goes to bed'. It seems all too convenient. Maybe someone relieved him, fell asleep, and threw him under the bus? If the 'new crewman' doesn't have a name, no harm to them.

 

[AZTinman]

Or, maybe the new guy on the boat didn't get relief and simply went to bed. There's really nothing convenient about some of the really dumb decisions people make.

Does anyone remember the 2016 incident where a large male white shark penetrated through the top of a shark cage at Isla Guadalupe as it attempted to get a chum bag that was inside a cage with divers? Personally, my brain had difficulty understanding how anyone could come up with a dumbass idea like putting a chum bag inside a cage with divers, but it doesn't change what happened and why it happened.

How many of us had difficulty understanding the absence of a night watch on the Conception in 2019?

Sometimes, the truth is really simple; stupid is as stupid does. Stupid decisions and the resulting negative consequences often defy logic.

-Tinman

 

[Ayisha]

...maybe astute groups of passengers should instigate and rotate their own independent watch at night? Unattended helms should never happen.

I would be afraid that this would shift the onus of boat/fire safety to paying passengers rather than dedicated crew.

I have been on liveaboards with and without a roving night watch. Since the at least 3 well publicized liveaboard tragedies, I would only choose to go on liveaboards with a roving night watch and other safety measures/sufficient fire escapes, etc.

I am a night owl and tend to be out on deck till the wee hours. If I didn't see the said roving night watch for a significant amount of time, I would now probably go looking for them or the Captain/crew.
Other people might awake really early, and might be more aware of the roving night watch status moving forward.

Taking over night watch duties are a whole other level and might set us up to be held responsible if something happens. I would rather implore on the industry the importance of their captains and crews adhering to all the safety measures and that we can and should vote with our money.