64 Viking sinks in gulf

Belle, I'm just glad it wasn't a boat I saw the other day in Topsail..."Buttered Nipple". (Please don't anybody touch it or we'll be way of topic. lol.

Ok, back to serious. The fact is that as professionals, who have lives and million dollar toys in our hands, we are held to a much higher standard than the average Joe both by the authorities, the public and by ourselves. It's drilled into us throughout our careers. Our careers are all about of reputation. Like all professionals we're not judged by what we do right. We're judged by the one thing we do wrong. Boating is a very small community.

For better or worse this is an industry that historically gives second chances. The list is pretty long of captains that have F-ed up over the years and have gone on to run other boats. In many cases bigger boats at that.

We definitely run in different circles.

It is obvious... you have not looked at the reports which are online about the incident.
It was daylight and clear. They had a fish on- which means the "trolling valves" would not be utilized.

The captain had a fish on and you as captain have quite a bit to do in order to insure you catch the fish. He failed to recognize how close the rig was- and hit the rig. Where he hit was a section of the rig which holed the front of the boat on the port side above the water- nearly half way to the rub rail. The rest of the boat was not damaged. Either something was sticking out of the rig or a "leg" of the rig was above the water just a few feet. Either way the hole was large and water came in with most waves. They tried to keep the boat on plane so the front was above water and waves- but the engines overheated. The captain had switched the raw water intake to the crash valves; even with the screening over the crash valve intake stuff can clog the intake and thus starve the engine of cooling raw water. That apparently happened- at least it's the most logical explanation of why a engine would overheat with open crash valves. The engines overheated and went into limp mode and the boat could not be kept on plane. The waves continued and the flow could not be stemmed and she sank.

I agree with the second chances; I know many captains who eff'd up big and went on to run larger boats in new places where no one knew what had happened.

Perhaps you just need to look outside your circle Ed.

It's my understanding the engines over heated because they had pumped out most of the water in the bilge and then the engine raw water pumps started running dry. You could say it was another mistake by the crew not to be watching the level of the water in the bilge to prevent that from happening. But it's not easy to be in two places at once as all hell is breaking loose. (Not to mention that a flooding engine room can quickly turn into a death trap in several ways.) Which is to bad because if not for that they might have saved the vessel from sinking.

A better strategy might have been to not have the crash valves fully open so the engines could still draw in some clean seawater. There by hopefully preventing the engine raw water pumps from running dry and the engines over heating due to the crash pump intakes clogging or the intakes running low on water to pick up from the bilge.

A full time licensed captain who worked for the owner and the owner was on board at the time of the incident. The boat was not on charter from what I've read.

Well, name the boat name that influenced a presidential election as it described what was taking place on the boat and shortly after a leading candidate ended his campaign. The woman involved with the candidate though did then have a good name for the jeans she represented.

Now somewhat closer to topic. Some employers will give second chances and some won't. Insurers tougher. Personally, I'd have to talk personally and know the circumstances and what has changed. I'd like to hear "I made a huge mistake for which I make no excuses. I learned my lesson and here are the steps I've taken to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. I feel that this has probably made me a better captain." But often it leads to a change of career, just like youthful indiscretions do.

There was a combination of several errors that allowed this boat to sink. Not having someone staring down the engine room door the entire time they were running back makes no sense. If not just to monitor the water level. If the hole was above the waterline, why didn't they run the boat in reverse or at idle speed back or better yet call a salvage company to come out with plywood to screw over the hole and extra pumps......While it's not good to speculate on a situation that you weren't in, it sounds like they didn't make several good decisions.

Target Fixation

Once a Captain, whether he is flying a fighter aircraft or running a fish fighting boat, gets what is commonly called "Target Fixation" then this type of incident is not that uncommon.
During most the air wars of the last 90 years, there are dozens of examples of Target Fixation.

As for ending his career, if every skipper, pilot, race driver, chef or barber, lost their career for ONE mistake, then the world would be full of weaker, less knowledgeable people.

I have learnt some of the most important lessons in my business life and diving, boating, parenting and married life from the "Stupid" mistakes I made along the way.
Come on NYCAP, pulling the throttles back in a following sea at the wrong time or turning into a swell at a bad angle has taught you most of what you know and made you a better Captain.

+1 to that.

Yes. I'm surprised they didn't do any of those things. It's hard to tell.

Capt J. Have you lost/almost lost a boat while under your control? It sounds like you may have been in a similar situation based on your advice.

I know of one local big ship captain whose career ended after a well publicized grounding, another small commercial boat captain who smartly tried to kill himself twice after a well publicized crash, a local plastic boat captain who was mentioned here for sinking a boat. He now works marinas a 2 hour commute from his home. And I keep a list of several local captains that I won't hire or refer work to because they were found drunk on board, crashed due to recklessness, ran boats at night without radar by choice, undercut the local rate,etc. I would expect no less for myself. Guess we're just less forgiving around here.
BTW Kafue, yes we all make mistakes, and we learn by those mistakes. But once it reaches the caliber of getting publicized what we need to learn is a new trade. I can't imagine hiring someone who made mistakes like this. I also can't imagine explaining to my insurance company why I hired him if he then had a repeat performance. There's an old saying "Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me".

I am not talking about a Captain who makes a habit of being incompetent, drunk or dangerous.
You DO NOT know if this was the first time this skipper has erred and to come to the conclusion that this is the end of his career is a bit much. We don't know how many years he has been running boats or what the full scenario was. Have you never made a serious mistake? The difference here is he lost the vessel. After hitting the rig he may have acted in a way that saved lives or prevented serious injury. You do not know this.
You say that ONE STRIKE and you are OUT. Unless we are talking about the Concordia incident or something comparable then it simply is not true.

Nothing beats experience, and experience is paid for by time in all conditions and the occasional mistake that stays with you for the next similar experience.
But for the Grace of G-d go I and many people I know.

Fully agree with Kafue, I was a race car driver for almost 10 years and (partly) crashed some, but have won several championships and still have boxes full of trophies, I’m a business owner for almost 30 years, and made many mistakes, but from the age of 33, I became financial independent for the rest of my life, I’m never married, but changed several times to get at the best ever…(lol), so in my opinion, mistakes are part of life, and if you learned your lessons…

Sorry, but I disagree. With race cars crashes are part of the game. If you crash while pushing the limits that's how it goes. But if you crash because you were checking out a girl in the stands that a whole different story. And it's not part of the game with yachts. As professional captains we don't get to learn from our mistakes on other people's million dollar toys. You may get away with a scrape here or there, but when it rises to the point where it gets this much notice and notoriety it's a done deal in my book. This captain didn't make a mistake. He screwed up royally. He was careless, and that's not allowed in our business. Could you imagine telling your insurance carrier 'I know he screwed up and was careless and he sank a $4 million yacht because of it, but I decided he deserved a second chance. Sorry it's going to cost you another $4 million for my boat that he sank'?

A few years ago I heard of a doctor who cut the wrong leg off a patient. Do you think he should be forgiven? Would you let him operate on you? In all professions there's a line where on one side a mistake is tolerated. On the other side of that line it's not. In my book he crossed that line. There's too many good captains out there to be messing with someone whose judgement has been proven flawed. He watched the fish and not the boat for god's sake. His job is the boat. He failed to have the crash pumps monitored and burned up the motors, and that caused the boat to be lost. People could have died were it not for another boat being close by. Would it have changed your opinion if people died because of what he did? If this owner had a 10% deductible it's going to cost him a couple hundred thousand out of pocket. That's not chump change. What he did was worse than what the Costa Concordia did. It just didn't have as dire consequences. If a captain jeopardizes his passengers due to reckless behavior, there are no second chances in my book. He's just lucky that nobody lost their lives or losing his career would be the least of his problems.

Now for the rest of the story.

If she fools me a third time, she must be some kind of wonderful and very, very easy on the eyes, with legs all the way to heaven.