Duck boat

[glatt]

Originally Posted by tw

I need to see the video

You may want to see the video, but it's certainly not something that you need.

[Carruthers]

The reports of this tragedy jogged my memory about a couple of incidents with Duck Boats in the UK in recent years.
A quick search revealed that there had been three not two as I had first thought.

Incidents involving two Duck amphibious passenger vehicles in which one sank and the other caught fire highlighted extremely poor maintenance and a failure to meet standards, an accident investigation chief has said.

It was “extremely fortunate” that none of the 33 passengers and crew on board the Duck vehicle Wacker Quacker 1, formally known as a DUKW, was drowned or injured when it sank in Salthouse Dock in Liverpool on 15 June 2013, said the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) chief inspector, Steve Clinch.

In the second incident, when the London-based Duck Cleopatra caught fire on the river Thames in London on 29 September 2013, the 28 passengers and two crew had to jump into the water and were rescued by other vessels without serious injury.

In a joint report into both incidents published on Wednesday, the MAIB said that the Wacker Quacker 1, whose passengers either swam ashore or were recovered by other crafts’ crews, was the second Duck vehicle to sink in Salthouse Dock in a three-month period.

The report said that on both occasions the Ducks did not have the quantity of buoyancy foam required to provide the mandated level of residual buoyancy.

Clinch said it became clear that other DUKWs operating in the UK also did not have the quantities of foam required and that focus had shifted to ensuring that these amphibious passenger vehicles would float when flooded.

The Cleopatra’s operators, London Duck Tours, made buoyancy amendments. But Clinch explained that in the case of Cleopatra the “foam was so tightly packed around machinery that it caught fire, resulting in 30 passengers and crew needing to rapidly abandon the vehicle into the Thames”.

The Guardian

[glatt]

I rode in one as a child in the early 80s in the Wisconsin Dells. It was really fun and our driver was cracking dumb jokes the whole time. He asked us to look out the back of the duck as we were on one spot of the river and said something like "Now you can tell everyone you looked up the rear end of a duck." It was painted in the same colors as when it was in the military. They seemed to treat it as a functioning museum.

The Wisconsin Dells are the perfect location for something like the Ducks because the waterways are narrow and protected and very scenic.

There use to be a few of them in DC giving tours, but I haven't seen them in a while. Maybe they are still around. People on the Ducks in DC looked a little miserable when I would see them slowly chugging through the water with no shade. The Potomac is wide where they would go in the water, and the Ducks travel slowly. There are not many things to look at from the water in DC near the boat ramp they used.

[tw]

Originally Posted by glatt

You may want to see the video, but it's certainly not something that you need.

I do need. Withholding facts is a lie. Lies are a threat to human life.

Most want to see a car crash to entertain their emotions. That is a want; not a need. I need to see it to learn why it happened, how to avoid it, and what we did wrong. All are reasons for need.

[glatt]

Sure, but you're just armchair analyzing here. You don't run a Duck Boat operation and don't need to analyze this. You aren't on the accident investigation team.

[Gravdigr]

My theory is that current journalists, and, yes, I'm using that term very loosely, do not understand words. They think 'capsize' and 'sink' are the same things.

I've noticed that a lot of 'journalists' have trouble of using the proper preposition, also.

[glatt]

Did you all notice a couple days ago how the New York daily News laid off half its editorial staff to focus more on fast breaking content and less on thoughtful pieces?

[Undertoad]

News story has survivor report saying

Keller said her daughter and ex-husband reported the vessel began to sink in the stormy conditions Thursday night, and the occupants were briefly trapped under the duck's canopy.

Eventually, one of the duck boat operators was able to release the canopy and people swam toward the surface, according to the account Keller received.

[Gravdigr]

They used to have the old surplus ducks at Beech Bend Park. Rode 'em a bunch as a kid.

[Diaphone Jim]

Undertoad's quote from a survivor above is the most telling thing I have read.
Some of the folks that made it out were saved by the release of the canopy after the boat was submerged.
That means it was still upright underwater, not overturned or "capsized."

I think the problem started with a reporter and editor who did not (probably still does not) know what the word "capsize" means, but thought it sounded nicely catastrophic.
Other news outlets went with the error, making it common knowledge, but still not true.

Coming soon in another thread: The Thailand Cave story.

[sexobon]

There was an interview with a couple from the other duck boat, the one that made it back safely, in which they said they heard their captain say the doomed duck boat flipped over or sank. Perhaps that's where it got started.

[captainhook455]

I just saw on the news that the owner of the duck boat company is being sued for 100 million.

[xoxoxoBruce]

What difference does it make if it capsized or not. The story is it sank and people died.

I rode one giving tours of Hyannis Harbor on Cape Cod a couple years ago.

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

What difference does it make if it capsized or not.

A swamped boat should never capsize; trap and kill it occupants.

In a previous event, an investigation noted serious design deficiencies with that duck boat. For example, it had no reserve buoyancy.

In a Lake George event maybe ten years ago, defective construction made that boat unstable. So it capsized, thereby trapping and killing passengers.

[Diaphone Jim]

Gee, the second most active thread of all (6) I've started.
My original point got lost, however.
I know nothing of Duckboats, but was interested in the fact that the one in Arkansas seemed to simply go straight down and 99% of the news stories got stuck on the term "capsized," which did not further understanding of the event.