The boat launch for the ducks is probably under 2 miles from my shop. I was at the house when the storm was rolling in, I drove over to where we had the 70 ton at with jib and stinger and dead stick in and boomed it down. It was real nice out- still with no wind, before it hit, then went to 40-50 mph in about 2 minutes time. I met the fire trucks as I left the 70 ton jobsite after booming it down- its just a mile in the other direction from the lake.
Its a sad, tragic thing. And hindsight is 20/20, and everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else.
I don't think the ducks are inherently unsafe. Probably a far less accident rate than any car, truck, jeep, or whatever you want to pick. Probably safer than walking in a walmart parking lot. But don't have any business being out in 4' waves.
All the people talking about them being from 1944, the only thing on them from '44 is the titles. They have new hulls, new drivetrains, different engines, different everything. My mechanic guy used to work there.
I read a article the other day that said they shouldn't have been on the water because there was a thunderstorm watch issued at 8:00 that morning. A lot of july and august weeks there is a thunderstorm watch every day. Nice in the morning, heats up , and the thunderstorms roll through in the afternoon. If you didn't run every time there was a watch out, you'd never go out.
That said, I saw it coming in and went and boomed down the 70 ton. The captain could have just said "sorry folks, it looks like that storm is moving in, we aren't going in the water, you can all come back tomorrow with complimentary passes"- or something like that. Of course there would be one PO ed person who would leave a bad review on trip advisor- "they said it was too stormy out so we didn't even get to go on the water and we were leaving the next day- so what good would a voucher do us? It looked fine out to me." And all those resort/ tourist activities are scared to death of a bad review on trip advisor.
There were (per the us coast guard) - 658 deaths in 2017 in boating incidents. in 2015 there were 626, with 2,613 injuries. There were 5.3 deaths for every 100,000 registered boats. That's not to lessen this tragedy. But they have been in town here for 40 years with no incidents. Yes there have been other duck boats go down. But compared to tour buses, airplanes or personal vehicles, their reputation is pretty good. Nobody is talking about banning those modes of transportation, or all boats, or jetski's.
None of that lessens the tragedy of people dying on vacation in a tour boat, and its a really sad thing.
But I think its ridiculous when the former NTSB chair, says now they should be banned. He used to be in a position to do something about it- and did nothing back then, but I think now he's just fishing for a chance to be a "expert" witness in a lawsuit. Any time I hear someone talking about banning something- look at the statistics. The most dangerous thing we all do is hop in a car and drive- nobody says a word about banning cars.
