60 miles South of San Felipe boat sinks many dead

moore_rb

moore_rb

Stay Thirsty My Friends
Roberto said:
The other odd thing is that the ship was reported as being build for North Sea conditions. Anyone wanna bet it was not maintained or perhaps modified?
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It was heavily modified.

Here are a couple pics of the boat showing the panga storage racks which grew to be 3 levels high over the years:

erik1.jpgerik2.jpg
 
Stuart

Stuart

Aye carumba!!!
Staff member
GringoZona said:
holy hell! what happened there?
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They were fishing; went to move the boat. I don't think they used the blower -or- they had a gas leak. When they hit the starter - BOOM! Sent the big guy laying on the back of my boat flying 15-20 ft. in the air when the motor cover blew. He had been sitting on it. Likely he saved the rest of the guys from more serious injury during the explosion. There were only minor injuries. One of the crew had cracked ribs, the old guy had some burns on his face. I was more worried about the big guy. We could barely get him in the boat and he was in shock, just laying spread-eagle on the deck. I had the guys get him sitting upright and he finally got some color back and came around.

Since I had the largest boat on scene, I decided to take them all. I called into shore on the VHF with a mayday and the bomberos met us near the harbor; also had several ambulances waiting at the dock. The response from all involved on shore was outstanding, but had there not been other boats in the area that saw the smoke (as we did), things could have turned out a lot differently for those guys!

It's like I've always said - when doo-doo goes wrong out there, it goes wrong in a real hurry!
 
PintoPoint

PintoPoint

Guest
I used to take a boat out of San Carlos called the EL Duke. It was a converted trawler like this boat which made it very top heavy. We almost went over a couple of times. One time we were hit by a following sea and it pitched us sideways and dumped all of our dive gear overboard. Fun trip because you sleep on the upper decks in the open air. The next trip we brought our own epirb and made a ditch bag with an attache bouy. I would still do it again.

Rick
Cholla Bay
 
rockyptjoe

rockyptjoe

Guest
Does anyone remember the pink Margarita (or some name like that)....it's still sitting off Benito Juarez the last time I looked. I believe the woman owner did some creative cutting....and turned a trawler into a death trap in heavy seas!
 
rockyptjoe

rockyptjoe

Guest
Read that the search continues for the missing tourists.....even brought in a C130.

Has anyone ever seen a 40 ft. wave in the Sea of Cortez?...particularly within 2 miles of shore? I've read reports of 100 ft. waves in the the Sea of Cortez, but would expect that to be further south. I'd be interested to know the condition of the boat if they ever find it, or bring it up.
 
PintoPoint

PintoPoint

Guest
The Mexican navy has already found the boat. According to one survivor she did not roll completely over but took on water and sank like the Titanic one end first.

Rick
Cholla Bay
 
moore_rb

moore_rb

Stay Thirsty My Friends
Well, thinking purely as a fisherman (and with no disrespect toward the loss of life intended)... she'll make a fine artificial reef over time.
 
Stuart

Stuart

Aye carumba!!!
Staff member
rockyptjoe said:
Saw on the news last night that there are reports of the captain being arrested....
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I hadn't heard that, but it doesn't surprise me. Ultimately (in any country), the captain is responsible for the safety of the vessel, crew, and passengers. That captain screwed up big time, especially if the reports are true that the harbor master had closed the harbor and told the Erik twice not to go out.

If it were the US, the ambulance chasing lawyers would already be scouring the survivors to bring lawsuits. Since it is in Mexico and the survivors (passengers) are American, I doubt there's any hope of civil liability cases being filed. Then again, I'm not an expert on Mexican law; but you just don't hear about people suing because of a hangnail like they do here in the US.

Interesting account of the tragedy from one of the survivors here. They say nobody has been arrested, but that was as of yesterday.

It will certainly be a black mark on all of the San Felipe fishing operations, even though the other operators had nothing to do with this captain's poor decision that cost the ship and lives. Very sad.
 
Stuart

Stuart

Aye carumba!!!
Staff member
Why would that surprise you, Zona? No different than this forum where people poo-poo narco shootings, dead bodies, kidnappings, and other horrific events as "You're perfectly safe, nothing to see here, move along." They have a vested interest and bad news is not good for business.

If you say it in enough places, enough times, people might actually start to believe you. They wouldn't post it on the Internet if it wasn't true, right?

:puff:
 
mexicoruss

mexicoruss

Lovin it in RP!
RIC said:
I can't say for sure but I believe the booking agent for that boat is in California. If so, that may open them up to legal action in the United States.

Ric
I'm not sure that a booking agent can be held liable for the action of the item he booked, IE a booking agent books a condo, he is the middle man, he collects and forwards the money for the transaction or he uses the condos booking system and the condos system collects the money from the client and then pays the booking agent a fee. The booking agent did what he was supposed to do for the condo and the condo did what they were supposed to do for the agent. If the mutual client of the booking agent /condo has a horrible time or gets hurt on the property, or dies, I dont see liability going back to the agent, unless.....the booking agent made claims on behalf of the condo outside of his field of authority to make the sale and those particular claims were in someway responsible or had a part in the damage to the mutual client. I would think that that reasoning would be the same in this case too. But what do I know I am just a salesman.
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Jim

Jim

Guest
I've had it beat into my head for 20 years. Real Estate Law 101: If you know it, you have to tell it. If you should have known it and you don't tell, you're screwed. If you do know it and don't tell (or worse, lie) you are really screwed. Therefore, either don't vouch for bad information (Real Estate or elsewhere) or so some research, disclose everything and if the people involved decide to go on anyway, make sure it is in writing that you warned them. I won't be surprised to see lawsuits in both Mexico and the USA. When did we stop being responsible for our own actions? This isn't like me, something must have just struck a chord...
 
rockyptjoe

rockyptjoe

Guest
GringoZona said:
The people on this FB page for San Felipe don't seem to know what the hell they're talking about and are more concerned with damage-control. http://www.facebook.com/groups/SanFelipeBCMexico?id=10150244285823028
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They've never heard of or seen a red flag in San Felipe.....I guess they operate differently there...because I have seen the red flag flown a few times in Penasco! One is calling it an "act of God"....as if God sent the captain out after he was warned not to!
 
jerry

jerry

Guest
The more you read about this thing the more it pisses you off.
"The men raced out of the room. To their dismay, they noticed that the boat’s entire crew of 16 already was assembled on deck, wearing nice life vests. Tsurumoto said the boat’s cook handed him a life vest that had broken straps."
"Levine said the crew “knew how to save themselves, except for the cook, who handed out life jackets. And he couldn’t swim.”
http://forums.bajanomad.com/viewthread.php?tid=53870&page=8
 
R

rplarry

Guest
jerry said:
The more you read about this thing the more it pisses you off.
"The men raced out of the room. To their dismay, they noticed that the boat’s entire crew of 16 already was assembled on deck, wearing nice life vests. Tsurumoto said the boat’s cook handed him a life vest that had broken straps."
"Levine said the crew “knew how to save themselves, except for the cook, who handed out life jackets. And he couldn’t swim.”
http://forums.bajanomad.com/viewthread.php?tid=53870&page=8
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You just gotta love this quote from the article:

"The group left San Felipe Thursday morning armed with a letter from U.S. consulate officials that urged their safe passage home. The letter was necessary because the men lost their passports, driver’s licenses and everything else they had with them when the boat went down.

Nevertheless, they said they were hassled at the U.S. border by officials who told them they hadn’t been made aware of their situation. "

Par for the course it seems....
 
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