Captain's Responsibility
The attach link has copies of the newspaper account of this incident. For me, the following issues are evident from the available information: 1. Overloaded boat. On boat tipping, all adults rush to high side and contributing to instability of the boat. 2. No water ballast evident 3. Lines inside the cabin not secured and intangled children on capsizing. Emergency line cutting knife / cutters not available to rescuer. Children had life jackets on in cabin. 4. All lines from raft up may not have been removed on getting underway under power. 5. Many boats getting underway at the same time after fireworks, may have caused heavy wave action contributing to boat rocking, especially if depth shallow. 6. Adult passenger on the bow during incident firing firecrackers, ugh. 7. Captain's refusal to take DUI test makes it appear his judgement may have been impaired at the time of capsizing. 8. From the photo of the rudders, it appears the MacX model was >= 1998. Many improvements made to this model including more ballast room forward to improve stability, IF water ballast was IN. LESSONS LEARNED: 1. Always have ballast in, even when motoring. 2. Have emergency serrated knife / bolt cutters available near fire extinguisher location. 3. Display load capacity of the boat and distribute passengers on board to improve stability. Point out the danger of moving too quickly from disignated seat during tipping of boat. 4. Captain to brief passengers on emergency procedures and equipment location before getting underway. 5. Captain to be the "Designated Helmsman" during party occasions. In looking at the pictures of the two youngster that drown, I see my own grandchildren and pray that such an incident never happens again.
