According to Frank F. Matthews :
> It is interesting that they apparently do not expect
> passengers in a tour boat to move to where they can see
> something. In most tourist trips I have taken in boats
> planes and cars folks move from side to side to see whatever
> is interesting. Apparently this is not a design or
> certification consideration for tour boats.
In this particular boat, the passengers were packed in like
sardines, 7 across each row (4 people, aisle, 3 people). That
may have contributed to the death toll.
One thing that the stories haven't mentioned is that Shoreline
Cruises, the owner/operator, is a comparatively small
operation. There is also a much larger company on Lake
George, which has a couple of multideck boats that can take a
few hundred passengers each, who can sit or walk around.
Perhaps Shoreline's price was lower. This being after the
high season, I doubt that the bigger boats were full.
(Q: how do you get a 3 deck stern wheeler into a landlocked
lake? A: in pieces)
Some early reports blamed the wake of one of the larger
competing boats for the capsizing. I'm curious where that
story started. The other boat claims to have been miles away
at the time, and that sort of thing is checkable.
A few days ago NYS increased the assumed weight of an average
passenger for max load computations from 140 to 174 lb.
One story that was not repeated is that the boat was floating
overturned until rescuers tried to right it. Then it sank.
I'm surprised that there are no floatation requirements for
these boats, but I'm not a boater.
There are contradictory stories about the efficiency of the
rescue operation. There were other boats all around pulling
people out of the water, yet some of the passengers claimed to
have been in the water for 15 minutes. Perhaps the '15' is
an exaggeration.
Finally, I'm no longer positive that no one saw a wake just
before the boat capsized. Some passengers might have; I'm not
sure now. However, there are frequent wakes, from jet skis on
up.
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