Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

I was sitting at home watching the news tonight when I saw the horrific story about the duck boat sinking in Tablerock lake outside of Branson thursday.. god almighty, have we reached the point where the persuit of the dollar bill is more important than human lives. 17 people died in this tragedy, children as young as 1 year old... 9 members of one family killed... and the terrible part of it is there were storm and lake warnings out all day long... hours before that duck boat hit the lake.. I guess this is pissing me off so much because this could have been a member of my family.. Just 4 or 5 weeks ago I took my grandson to branson and we "rode the duck".. it was great and he had a lot of fun.. but I tell you before we ever left the hotel room that day I checked the weather forecast before we walked out the door. I can't imagine how terrified those poor people were...

Roland,

I agree that this could have been avoided. Both my wife and I grew up in fishing families and were taught to always watch the weather. You also have to own your own safety and not rely on others to make these judgement calls as you did when you went on the Duck Boat.

You can’t wait on perfect weather to go out but you don’t have to be stupid about it either.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of this tragedy.

Horrible video of that mess. Very sad. Said they left port in good weather?? As far a forecast goes, I have been on the wrong end of really bad storms with stellar forecast, so Shift can happen and happen quickly any time and any where.

not sure if there are words for how stupid that entire saga was. Should have NEVER put those things in the water with a storm forecast looming. Even more stupid they put them in the water with a storm expected to arrive while the boat was in the water, time-wise. Those things have virtually no reserve buoyancy to handle anything but calm conditions. Negligence all the way down the chain. Senseless and so avoidable.
Maybe its time to ban the damned things...I know I wouldn't get on one of them.

We were on our way down to Table Rock when the storm blew thru Ozark MO. Our five gallon gas cans were blowing all over the place.

My wife said she wanted to go to the bath room. I told her "no, we are going to get ahead of this one". The storm hit fast and hard with a vengeance. The skies really did not look that bad up until the time the winds blew thru.

My problem is that they allegedly put plexi glass on the sides, basically making them a coffin if they did take on water.

STEVEBRENDA wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 25, 2018 11:16 am

My problem is that they allegedly put plexi glass on the sides, basically making them a coffin if they did take on water.

Thats pretty accurate Steve.. my wife and I took our grandson on a duck ride about 7 weeks ago... never again. I remember sitting there, looking out the window and they had this real heavy looking plastic sheeting rolled up on each side of the boat. It was bundled up near the top of the boat since it was a nice sunny day... they obviously unrolled that plastic sheeting to keep the blowing rain and wind from getting inside... if you look at the video that was released you can see the clear plastic tarp was rolled all the way down.. I'm like you Steve, I think that had a lot to do with so many lives being lost... I feel pretty sure that had that not been rolled down, more of the people could have gotten a life jacket on and gone thru the window to the surface...would have been a rough float with those high winds, but their chances would have been a hell of a lot better had they been able to get out of the duck.. it's just a horrible tragedy.. and all because the company was chasing the almighty $$$. well you can bet it's going to end up costing a lot more than they made on those two rides... I think this disaster could put them out of business all together.. i know one thing, I won't take my grand babies on there ever again...no way.

The Captain of the ship, no matter how small or how large, is responsible for the well being and safety of all crew and passengers. At the first sign of bad weather every soul aboard should have been required to don life jackets. Although the construction and design of the duck boat would make it difficult, if not impossible to escape while sinking, at least there may have been a fighting chance for some.

I was the young, dumb Captain of a small boat once, filled with family and friends, out for fun in the sun on a nice day. We were playing in a deserted cove a few miles from the dock when a fierce storm whipped up in just a very few minutes. I quickly got everyone aboard and set out for safety when the storm really hit us full force in about the middle of the large lake. Driving was literally like someone was throwing five gallon buckets of water in my face faster than I could clear it. A good friend who couldn't swim very well asked me if we should put on our life jackets. Stupid me yelled "Nahh, we'll be fine". We were, and we all got to the dock safely just in time to help other folks whose biminis were flying off and boats everywhere coming un-moored. I regret that decision, and will never make it again.

I'm guessing that Captain was young, or maybe with not much experience but I look at it as a fail, like mine, both on him and on his management for allowing the boat to go out with the weather reports they had in hand that day.