Another Waterman Lost

[jay_merrill]

Once again, a waterman has been lost to a preventable accident.

I don't have full details at this point, but it appears that the man was attempting to remove an entangled shrimp net from the prop of his trawler. He was the captain of the vessel and went overboard without a PFD, in an attempt to swim under the boat. His intention was apparently to cut the net off of the wheel and shaft.

The location of the boat at the time was in an area called "the Rigolets." It is basically the mouth of Lake Ponchartrain and experiences heavy tidal flow. I received word of the man overboard at about 2am this morning, but couldn't launch because I had "dad duty." When I spoke to the Sector New Orleans ops supervisor, however, he told me that they believed the current had swept the man away from the boat very quickly. That theory seems to have been confirmed by a news report this morning, stating that he went under once and never came up. His body was located by search crews three miles "downstream," about two hours after the SAR effort was launched.

As someone said to me in a PM the other day, the most important safey item we have on our boats is our brain. Obviously, the lesson here is that trying to swim in heavy currents presents a very real danger, and should not be attempted by someone without the proper training and equipment to do so safely.

 

[guiltypleasure]

Re: Another Waterman Lost

I wonder why he didn't tie a safety line from him to his boat? Would that have been appropriate or is there some reason you would recommend not doing that? It seems like an obvious precaution to take in the even that he absolutely had to get into the water at that moment.

Whatever the answer it's still a sad situation. I hope we can all learn from the mistakes of others.

 

[jaxnjil]

Re: Another Waterman Lost

I wonder why he didn't tie a safety line from him to his boat? Would that have been appropriate or is there some reason you would recommend not doing that? It seems like an obvious precaution to take in the even that he absolutely had to get into the water at that moment.

Whatever the answer it's still a sad situation. I hope we can all learn from the mistakes of others.

it would seem to me your idea of a safety line would be better than a pfd in this case.
when i needed to check my trim tabs and prop this spring i found it impossible to dive under my boat with my pfd on and removed it.

 

[SnappingTurtle]

Re: Another Waterman Lost

Pulled two bodies out of the river at the locks by our apartment last weekend, both fishermen, both with high alcohol blood levels, both boating alone, and both without a PFD.

Both just out relaxing, and having a good time.

I don't think I need to say more.

 

[jay_merrill]

Re: Another Waterman Lost

This is one of the few times that I would not say "he should have worn a PFD," because you really can't do that and be able to dive under a boat. In my mind, the mistake was in getting into a false sense of urgency and trying to dive in a very strong current.

When I talked to the Coast Guard early this morning, I was told that the boat was near a bridge known as the "highway 90 bridge," when this happened. If you use Google Map and the search string "rigolets louisiana," you will see that the area is basically a channel that runs between Lake Ponchartrain and another lake known as Lake Borgne. Further east, Lake Borgne connects with the Gulf of Mexico.

The tidal flow in this area is very strong because it empties and fills a very large lake, through a relatively narrow channel. Even if it means going aground, trying to dive in this water at any time other than slack tide, just isn't a good idea. I also wouldn't recommend a tether when working around a tangled shrimp trawl (net) because it would be too easy to get tangled yourself.

I think these sorts of accidents happen because the people involved haven't carefully considered the circumstances at hand. They are somewhat different than a lot of recreational accidents, in that they are not the result of gross negligence in the form of drinking, ignoring obvious safety issues, etc. In this case, I think the skipper simply didn't realize how much water flow he would be dealing with, before he went in. Perhaps he thought that the boat would drift at the same speed that the current would try to move him. Maybe he thought he would move faster but not much. Its hard to say what went through his mind but, since he was apparently in trouble almost immediately, it can easily be seen that this was an accident waiting to happen from the start.

I'm sure that the entire shrimping community here is sware of this tragedy by now and, if there is any good to come of it, it will be that they have learned not to do what this man did. As for the rest of us, we can learn the lesson too.