Baby trapped in Florida

Quote from this article, that raises serious safety concerns about the stability of the Seadoo Switch Pontoon watercraft.



"I tried opening my eyes a couple of times, but it stung too much,” Gill said. “You couldn’t see anything anyway. I kept reaching, but I couldn’t feel anything. I knew the adults weren’t wearing PFDs [personal floatation devices], but the baby was.

“I was trying to look for a better area to find her. The complete boat is at the water level, so there are no air pockets. She’s just trapped underneath."

A very complete article by Marine Industry News.
Families in danger, say some Sea-Doo Switch users as 'pontoon' style boats flip out https://marineindustrynews.co.uk/families-in-danger-say-some-sea-doo-switch-users-as-pontoon-style-boats-flip-out/

What is your personnal opinion on this subject ?

 

I work on PWC's of all brands in a repair shop in South Australia, a state with a fairly well educated population. I don't want to be rude, but I'll have to be: for want of more descriptive words, (you can substitute your own), the majority of PWC owners are extremely silly, ignorant, arrogant, and have substituted their imagination for reality. You can read between the lines ! Our workshop is daily amused, perplexed, and annoyed by the customers and their antics with their craft, their excuses, descriptions, assumptions, and outright lies. They do not read operator manuals, safety info, or even the safety stickers on their craft. It's a case of 'We got there, and it started, so lets go'. Also in personal experience and observations PWC operators ignore boating rules / laws, and common courtesy to other boaters, swimmers, canoeists, sailors, and the wildlife. I saw 2 surfaced young dolphins run over at high speed in a 4 knot zone in a sanctuary, by a PWC going flat out. Best time to witness idiocy on the water is late on a sunday, when the water police, transport authorities, fisheries department, etc. is not on duty. I think it would be a similar situation in most countries; while the cat's away the mice play.
We don't have these pontoon boats here, yet, but if they did become popular here, I would expect the worst: driving under the influence of many substances, overloading, misuse, collisions, flipping, drownings, sinkings, ridiculous accessories and modifications, and rescue at sea in storms, etc.

The biggest deterrent would likely be listing the costs of the repairs, and maintenance labour hours of various component failures caused by stupidity. Sales people never mention the cost of parts and labour to new buyers, that comes as a later surprise to them. "But it's still under warranty, isn't it ?"
As with every consumer product, the best safety features can be circumvented by deliberate or accidental misuse, blind ignorance, modifications, and deviousness. I remember when jet skis first came out, people were soon jumping waves, nose diving, and submarining them under the next wave, because they could. Forget the corrosion.
More fail-safes could be added by the manufacturer, but that would increase costs, reduce sales, and cut into the bottom line. Forward airtight bulkheads, or baffles would be a simple fix.

I think I turned it into a rant, sorry. In good educated sober hands they could be great family fun, but in newbie hands, and ***** hands, bad things can happen; same as with any boat.
A basic seamanship certificate should be earned before being allowed to own any motorised vessel, sailing excepted, since they already have skills, and not much speed/horse power.

 

Year ago I used to do maintenance and repair for several rental places. I agree with your observations.

 

@seasquirt
As I do a lot of free swimming, sometimes quite far from the coast, I had some harsh experiences of very silly - and dangerous - PWC owners. Everytime, it seems like they do take my security buoy for a land mark... Not to mention the total lack of respect around the slipway, where it is always the right place, in summer time, to watch people arguing, sometimes fighting to be the first on the water.

Still, I have this feeling that a new type of boat user is emerging, with their own way of doing things on the water. More and more pontoons boats are manufactured by new builders, and I wonder if all of them are really aware of stability requirements. Here is a strange example of it :

 

230 hp on an 18' 'toon with spoon bows and a reversing bucket - what could go wrong? It's like when liter bikes first became really popular in the US. The life expectancy of a 16 year-old with a Hayabusa, GSX-R or ZRX was six months.

 

It might be a case of certain boat / vehicle types attracting certain types of people. Motor launchers and yachties are a bit different. Same as with land vehicles, eg. (speaking very generally) Harley 'enthusiasts', cafe racers, dirt bikers, 50cc scooter riders; all have their 'quirks'. And eg. family sedan / station wagon / people movers, 4X4 - pickup truck drivers, micro bus, classic sports car enthusiasts, burnout prone muscle cars, and small economic shopping trolleys. Each type seems to attract a type of person who typically has certain proclivities and / or disabilities.
In my world in the 60's there were 'Sunday drivers', (they still exist), 70's and 80's there were 'Volvo drivers', then their stupidity / ignorance was out done by BMW drivers after the 80's; then there were also the 'holier than thou' Merc drivers, that common decency and road rules didn't apply to - windows up - look straight ahead, (they still exist too).
I've probably managed to insult almost everyone here, sorry. They're not all bad drivers, but you do notice the stupid and A hole ones, and then categorise. Then there's taxi drivers !
Again, most problems arise from lack of thorough training, comprehension, and poor assessment methods before issuing a license. Also peer pressure, distractions, and substances.
I'm no angel: 4X4, dirt bike, and shopping trolley, mellowed by experience / age, and expense, but not senile yet.

 

I think your right, it boils down to an easy group of folks single out.

Had a stall on an outer finger of a harbor entrance, learned pretty quick to clad the outside with bouys. Had everything from jet skis, to run abouts to sail boats and even a doctor on a 7 figure trawler hit me over the ten years we had the stall. Boat did a short specific fishery and spent a lot of time at the dock, the outboard side was referred to by my crew as the "hull of many colors" from the various scuffs and scrapes. I'd live aboard it when doing other work, and got to experience it a few times. Woke up to more than one sail boat stuck under my bow, even had one stick a rigging line in my paravane pole....

Got to experience all manner of bad seamanship from almost every type of boat in the world. I've seen commercial guys who qualified for a boat loan before they had the competency who caused loss of life, Dr's with big check books and no common sense cause loss of life on 6 figure toy boats. Trauma from jet ski accidents, damage from sailors with a dream but no skills....

Every boat struggles when subjected to incompetence or a callous disregared of those around, jet skis and mini pontoons are no different.

 

You forgot those of us that drive old rusty trucks. I take that as an insult. Please edit your post.

 

That means I did insult you, in a back handed way ! Sorry gonzo, I didn't want to mention my 30 year old rusty 4X4 I use to launch boats with. But they are the best - people look at it and must think 'well this guy obviously doesn't care about his car, I'll stay clear of it', and they do. And they're surprised that it doesn't go slow when they want to get in front of me. No one wants to steal it, so it's safe at the boat ramp for many hours, and it stands out so they don't hit it in the car park. We must belong to a special sub category of users, 'look out yourself cuz I don't care'. A mobile phone user rear ended it once, but my tow ball took care of him, ha; no damage to me but his had substantial damage. I wonder if he pays attention now.

 

*chuckle*..my trusty rusty 1978 Bronco has always been our boat launch and recovery vehicle. And yeah..she's a bit rusty.

 

Here's a salute to Seasquirt for telling like it is.

I often sail solo and peacefully on a local lake and I mind my own damned business and show respect to other sane boaters. After some experience with rowdy jet skiers, I often carry a shotgun on my boat. It is never loaded and I certainly have no intention of actually shooting at one of those maniacs. They seem to get their jollies from zooming in close to my boat and spraying water on me. When I display the shotgun, that seems to discourage their playful antics. Those clowns also seem to enjoy doing fast one eighties near a dock where several boats are tied up. Playfully rocking boats against their moorings seems to entertain them.

In fairness I once encountered a respectful Jet ski person. I was motoring my sailboat up a large river and making a sizable wake. He came close to me and asked permission to use my wake for jumping wakes with his jetski. I agreed and we had a friendly go of it for several minutes. The moral of the story is that, indeed not all of them are stupid and rude.

 

One of my many duties in the Coast Guard back in the late 70's, was what was called a Boating Accident Investigation Coordinator. Part of that was actually doing investigations and part was reviewing investigations to see if they were complete or need more investigation. Most of them were due to stupid and dangerous behaviors. It was a real eye opener. I have been around boats all my life, and realized when I was fairly young that some of the boaters fit your description, but not all. But this was long before the PWC generation. Although, I had a cousin who was a real nut, and after one or two rides with him I gracefully declined to go out with him on his 14 foot outboard with a 50 HP engine. He was really dangerous. That was back in the 60's. Fast forward to 2008, I bought my first power boat (I had always been a sailboat person) so I could go fishing on a rather large lake here in Washington. I found out that what all of you speak of was true. It wasn't just PWCs. My wife and I stopped going out on the lake on weekends, and in the summers we went out on weekdays and only in the mornings before all the nuts hit the lake. By talking to others I found that many other boaters on that lake did the same thing. There was a pro-skier who used to train on the lake early in the morning but they stayed away from anyone fishing, canoeing or kayaking. A team of crew racers also did all their training early in the day to avoid the boaters in the evening and on the weekends. However, I did have encounters with some PWCs, so before I moved away from that area, we started confining our fishing to a section of the lake that is a total no-wake zone. But even there, over an 8 or 9 year period, I had to call the water cops several times, to report boats or PWCs doing dangerous things near a swimming beach. not Just a lack of commonsense, Just plain arrogance and disrespect for the rules.

 

It seems like the shorter version of this craft is a bit top heavy. this top heaviness has little consequence for transverse stability because of the nearly 8 ft Beam. Lengthwise, it a whole other story. The top heaviness comes from having its entire load as deck load. And it's pretty high up. The specks say the height of the craft, from the very bottom to the top of the life-lines is 5.75 ft. If I subtract 3 ft ft from that, I get a deck height of 2.75 ft.

But the crew and passengers don't sit directly on the deck. they sit about 1.33 ft above it in various seats and benches. So, assuming their vertical CGs are at about belt height, that puts them at about 1.5 ft above the deck. And this puts their CGs at about 4.25 ft above the keel.

What I have read is that one of these flipped over end over end after the operator abruptly slowed down from a plane.

My Guess is the hull came to a near stop, but the passenger CGs kept moving. And this caused the boat to suddenly pitch forward, overcoming the vessel's longitudinal stability.

I think that just because the 130 hp mill has the power to make it plane with a 5 person load doesn't necessarily mean that it is safe to do so.

I think the manufacturer should give the user two safe load conditions. One for planing speeds and one for speeds of 5 mph or less.
The safe person load for planing speed should be based on the length of the craft. A longer craft should be allowed a higher passenger load while planing than a shorter one.

i also read of one of these flipping transversely while going only 8 mph. According to the article, it flipped when the bow of one of the side hulls shunted under. My guess is that this happened while making a turn.

IIRC, this was the one with the fatality.

 

I was thinking about coast guard placards the other day. My now dead inflatable has a placard that boldly shows its person limit followed with smaller font underneath on the weight restrictions. Made me wonder if the weight limit should be first and most bold, or the coast guard needs to be more honest about the engineering average weight of a modern American. Looking at the obesity rate globally since 1990, it may still be on the light side...

It was Halloween last night and my first night back in the big city. I'm positive it would be tough to get four of the 10 year olds trick or treating to fit under the 4 persons and 485 lbd weight limit of my old dingy. If I cherry picked for size maybe, but a random selection would likely exceed the limit. Maybe manufacturers need to up the expected weight of the end user.

 

Other way to say : give a little more margin in stability calculations...