Conception Captain Found Guilty of Manslaughter

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She was sank off the coast of Key Largo as a dive site. Lots of references to her here on SB.
 
Divers all over the country contributed money to have the Spiegel Grove cleaned and prepared for diving. Before I dived it for the first time, I decided to check it out online, and I found a website dedicated to the efforts to bring it to Florida as a dive site. The author of the site had served on it. The site had a running log of the status of the process. When the ship was finally being towed on its way to the planned site, the excitement in his description was overwhelming. I was sincerely touched by the man's love for the ship on which he had served and the joy he obviously felt in seeing it on its way.
 
We now know that the passengers were awake and aware of what was happening. If there was a viable path out, they would have tried it.
Obviously. But if there was heavy smoke and a small amount of fire they may have waited for crew not knowing how quickly a fire on a ship escalates. My thought was that id try to get through a fire if not an inferno. Its a tough subject as I was on that exact boat on the same 3 day trip less than a year before it and someone told me they had had a small electrical fire in the salon that they put out easily as a customer saw it which was prior to my trip.
 
Then what's he doing here, moderating? :)
Yes, he gets to control the pricks and not have to hear their crying, whining complaining or pretend to pay attention to it like he used to do on his boat.

P.S. I do know from authority that beneath all of the appearance of prickness, he is actually a very kind and sensitive cuddly teddy bear.
 
I get that. I just think it's insane.


A fire anywhere in the salon, the stairs or the bunk room would have filled the the salon with smoke in no time, rendering both escape routes equally useless or at least really dangerous, no?
going through the rear below deck exit from the top bunk puts you a few feet from the back of the salon with an open exit so you pop out and run full tilt till you jump overboard. smoke no problem. small fire still survivable , inferno not possible. from my experience on the Conception.

Very wierd aside, on that trip when we were coming back from channel islands to santa barbara the waves were as high as the top of the Conception. We had to hit the big ones head on or risk sinking. and in the distance we could see dolphins jumping out the top of these 30 foot high waves and diving down back into the water. It was wild.
But the reason I bring this up is one of the employees of the dive shop that set up the trip said after about an hour of this .... and he was totally joking but people were a bit scared....He said" Everyone will remember the day the Conception went down" and I joked with him about that for many many months after. He said that about 10 months before the event happened.

We never spoke of it again after that.
 
Than it's no wonder that the insurance rates go through the roof. When the CG just signs off on any swimming death trap with zero safety features, it makes sense that the insurance companies yank up the rates.

I don't think that hatch could have been considered and emergency exit by any definition.
the rear bunk hatch going straight up from the top bunk then sideways out into the salon was an exit from below. Exit from ship? No. But it is literally an exit from below decks. Now it didnt open up to outside air however it was only a few feet from an open air wide open exit from the salon. So I mean, yes it would have been almost impossible for everyone to get out of that exit and yes someone that is obese might get stuck and block it but it was actually an exit. from below decks..... Do I think it was adequate? No but I also know that by their definitions it was an exit. Im not argueing just saying what i think from seeing it in person on that boat.
 
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