Tour Boat Smaches Sailboat

[Freesail99]

Here is another story.

http://www.charleston.net/news/2007/..._regatta11241/

[bestfriend]

Unfortunately, it happens all the time here. Tour boats go right through the race course on their way to the Golden Gate Bridge. The chase boats are constantly calling them off.

[Boasun]

After reading this article and a short ponder on it.
I have no doubts that the operator (won't call him a captain) of the tour boat really blew it there.
The reason I say this; Is that my first commercial job after retiring from the Navy was running tour boats in San Diego harbor. And you know that there are thousands (seems that way) of sail boats out there on the weekends. We had to be alert at all times for them. I have had the smaller sail boats capsize in front of me. Have had them cross my bow and then come about and cross the bow again (I'm backing down hard to avoid the idiot). Coming back again, he had maybe unknowingly, but deliberately placed himself and crew in danger. And I had to take action to avoid him.
The gist of this is: When you are working in crowded waterways, you have to be alert to everything going on around you, and be ready to take avoidance action at the earliest hink of a possible collision.
What that operator did was wrong and very unprofessional. No he does not deserve to hold a license of any sort to work on the water.
There is one possibility as to what happen was: The operator had to make a head call and had the deckhand driving while he was down below in the restroom. And the deckhand failed to take corrective action or mention it to the operator. Knew one captain that this happened too. But he was informed. The USCG put him on six months probation and told him that a call of nature is the only reason why he didn't lose his license.

[CharlieCobra]

This is old news (a month ago) and it seems the folks have had issues with that particular captain before. He needs to be put on the beach.

[TSteele65]

Some of the comments on that news story are pretty scary.

[sailingdog]

The tour boat went through an area a regatta was being held in. The captain and boat did not stop to render aid to the boat they ran down. It does not seem, at least from the article, that the tour boat made any attempt to avoid collision or reduce the impact of the collision. And according the CharlieCobra, he's got a previous history of problems... he definitely needs to go.