Ethan Allen capsize: Lake George

Very good point.

But the two are not the same. Not even close.

With a cruise ship I bet you have at least ten tons of accomodation for each passenger on board. By 'accomodation' I mean cabin space, toilets, showers, beds, public great rooms, galleys, stores, ect. ect.

I think you will find that the passengers on your average cruise ship make up such a small, small proportion of the ship's total displacement that their weight, no matter where it is centered, has little effect.

With a small passenger boat such as the ETHAN ALLEN which has no accomodations for it's passengers other than seats, the passengers and crew are likely to make up as much as 1/3rd to 1/2 the boat's total loaded displacement.

I think a small passenger boat such as the ETHAN ALLEN has more in common with your typical aluminum fishing skiff than it does with any cruise ship.

Bob

 

Ethan Allen Investigation Resources

The Ethan Allen appears to have fallen through the stability tests otherwise required by the Coast Guard because it did not operate on navigable water where federal jurisdiction applies.

:!: If you are looking for information about the Ethan Allen capsize, the investigation or insights, check out the Ethan Allen Investigation Blog If you want to weigh in on the cause of the Ethan Allen accident, assign responsiblity for what happened or ask question, check out this Ethan Allen Investigation Wiki which can be edited by anyone.

No one intended this accident to happen but several players could have prevented it with a relatively minor amount of effort. Taking people out on the water is a heavy responsibility for any company. When we examine what was done to ensure the safety of Ethan Allen passengers, the answer thus far appears to be nothing. There was no dockside safety briefing. There were no life jackets where they can be used by passengers. The attempted compliance by Shoreline Crusies with minimal or non-existent New York Department Of Parks and Recreation regulations is hardly where most people would set the safety bar for a commercial enterprise taking people out on the water.

 

By the way, this is the most intellegent discussion I have seen on the internet or in the press concerning this accident. If we are to take a step forward on issues of passenger safety on tour boats, we need an open and honest discussion about these issues. We can't merely rely on the NTSB report and nod our heads.

 

The Cunard line in 100 years has sank more large un-sinkable liners than any of you know. With a loss of thousands. The same laws of design and survival still apply today. Any business always improves the profits first, then anything else later. Or they will not be in business later.

 

Compelling Market Forces Towards Safety

Interesting observation about profits. However, at some point the 'market' demands safety. In order to make profits, safety becomes a market differentiator. For instance, look at automobiles. In the 1970s, there was literally no marketing message that had anything to do with safety. In the 1980s, the fed considered mandating airbags which was technology available. Auto manufacturers said that no one would pay the extra $750-$1,250 in price. They stalled a decade on this erroneous premise. It turned out the market would demand safety. Now, safety is a key marketing component of autos.

How do we make this happen in the tour boat / ferry industry? Clearly, an accident such as the Ethan Allen presents that opportunity.

 

I think the Ethan Allan is a perfect but bad example of re-converting a specific boat into something the original designer did not had in mind. We call this improper metaphorical use of an object, in this case a boat that has designed as a leisure one rather than being a kind of passenger ferry.
Even in the undeep Dordogne River, in the place where I live, there are some passenger vessels that go out with tourists - a similar qty to Ethan Allan - and I have observed the safety-measurements: each boat was tested by loading it with filled up containers as a sample weight of the passengers and pushed from starboard to larboard with sufficient freeboard to match;
Above the heads of the passengers are the lifebelts, just for grab; the boats are designed to carry loads or passengers, they resemble the old Gabares, the old transport barge of the Dordogne river.
The Dordogne is an undeep river; at most places one can wade through, but nothing is left to chances.

 

Raised deck

So far I have not been able to find out when and how far up the deck was raised. My gues3 is that was done either in 1997, when the 1st alterations were done or later. I certainly hope the boat was not delivered in that condition. My personal guess is that the deck was originally 12in above the DWL and that it was later moved to 30in above the DWL. If so, it probably raised the boat's CG by at least 5in with an 8ton passenger load.

By my calculations, based on what little I know about the boat, it would have required at least 2700lbs of ballast to bring the CG back to where it was. If she were my boat, this is what I would have done once I decided to raise the deck:

1.) Added the estimated ballast, turning my 9.5 ton boat (again, my guess) into an 11 ton boat. That way I could also make up for the imbalance of seating too. The ballast, probably 19 cuft of concrete, would be tabbed to the hull so it could not shift. The tabbing would be strong enough to withstand a 90 deg. roll.

2.) Bolted the seats to the deck, so they could not shift. This would also be strong enough to withstand a 90 deg. roll.

3.) Added strong 'arms' to the ends of the seats, so the pssengers could not slide out of them. Also strong enough to withstand a 90 deg. roll.

4.) Put cribbing under the seats to hold in place one life jacket for every seat 'place' , so that they would be in easy reach of the passengers.

My guestimation is that these additional changes would have added around $10k to the cost of the original modifications. Much of that would be spent replacing the original bench seats with ones strong enough to withstand the new loads I have specified.

This, of course, would exact another price. The boat would ride 3 to 4in deeper with my additional modifications than it did with the origininal ones. In total, according to my guestimations, the boat would be riding 5 to 6in deeper than it would have without any modifications.

This is why we designers, and wanna be's (such as myself), always say: "Don't f--- with my design." It's not just ego.

Bob

PS I think the State of New York needs to be sued as well. After all, they are paid to look after our interests, not just kowtow to their 'special interest' 'campaign contributers'.

 

You can thank the Republicans for convincing the supreme court for ruling that police and most political governing bodies can no longer be sued for any reason.

 

The police are sued all the time. As a matter of fact the US government is also sued all the time. The law protects the government from some actions being brought against it but does not prevent all actions from being filed. However, suing the government is not the answer. Why can’t people be responsible for their own actions? The boat owner is the responsible one in this case. The captain also bears responsibility. You can’t legislate common sense and no matter how tight the regulations are some fool will find a way around them or just ignore them. Make people responsible.
Robert Gainer

 

It appears to me that the person responsible is Ms. Bernadette Castro, Commissioner, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. I mailed her the attached letter a week ago (in which I reiterate the recommendations I've made here).

I would note that New York State TEACHES naval architecture at SUNY Maritime Academy. It is also home to Webb Inststitute (an entire engineering school devoted exclusively to naval architecture) and the United States Merchant Marine Academy. Stevens Institute (home of Davidson Hydrodynamics Lab, naval architecture is part of their civil engineering program, offers a masters program in transportation management) overlooks New York City from the Jersey Bank of the Hudson.

 

If you sue the political bodies. Great. Taxes go up to make up for the settlements. Net change. Zero. They laugh all the way to the paid dinners.

 

As I read 46 CFR 178.330 the criteria using Beam/6 does not seam as conservative as I would think a Coast Guard rule for passenger vessels should be. The Coast Guard is apparently relying on passengers to keep their collective center of gravity in the middle third of the boat. A 4 or 5 in the denominator would sit better with me. Anyone know how the Coast Guard justifies a 6?

 

Nope. Don't think so.

People drive around in cars every day. They, themselves, are pretty much 'experts'. 'Experts' not on car design, but car handling and the hazards there of. They may get on an excursion boat maybe once or twice in their lives. Once they do, like people getting on a jet liner, they are totally dependent on the captain and crew. They probably have no idea of what makes a safe boat even though, in this particular case, several sensed an unsafe one.

Air bags made it into autos only because a luxury auto company introduced them first. The other car companies then added them to their luxury models only as a counter move. I'm not so sure that issue in the end was safety rather than status. It was a good thing though.

I am highly suspicious of the idea of 'market forces' producing anything other than inflated avarice and shoddy products, if they 'produce' anything at all.
Henry Ford produced the 'model T'. 'Market forces' did not. To credit 'market forces' for anything is, in my opinion, not only abdicating credit where credit is due, but all human accountabillity as well. The fact that the ETHAN ALLEN was unsafe will, I bet you, eventually be blamed on 'market forces'.

Bob

 

The sausages

Some time ago we have jamboized a tanker ship.
The problem of stability loss due to the new length was avoided by putting 2 sausages at the side.
It would be possible to increase the stability of such passenger vessels with 2 sausages when large modifications are foreseen

 

You can not spend any of a companies money for any reason. You can't even have their bussiness permits withdrawn.