Duck Boats

[Reynolds]

The term I've seen used is "reserve buoyancy", generally achieved by airtight or foam-filled compartments large enough to keep the watercraft afloat even when fully swamped. (And as noted above, limited to smaller boats, as it wouldn't be practical to engineer it for a 100,000 ton carrier.) Duck boats as designed don't have reserve buoyancy, but have depended on a powerful bilge pump to stay afloat, quite important during their WW2 use when their thin (for weight-reduction) steel plates were easily punctured by gunfire. The Arkansas tragedy several years back, 13 lives lost, apparently was caused by pump failure in rather calm waters.

Yep, "reserve buoyancy" is the correct term. A boat without "positive buoyancy" is an anchor.

 

[church mouse guy]

https://abcnews.go.com/US/dead-missouri-duck-boat-accident/story?id=56704420
A survivor of the tragedy, who lost nine of her family members in the accident, says the captain of the boat told her family not to worry about life jackets, Fox affiliate WXIN reported.

In my opinion, under these conditions, not commanding that life-jackets be deployed is a criminal act.

Most (maybe all) recreational watercraft are required to have "positive flotation". There are methods to insure a "duck boat" will not sink to the bottom of a body of water!

The nine were from Indy--they were Jesus only. They have collected about a million for funerals.

 

[Aaron]

https://abcnews.go.com/US/dead-missouri-duck-boat-accident/story?id=56704420
A survivor of the tragedy, who lost nine of her family members in the accident, says the captain of the boat told her family not to worry about life jackets,

I wish there were a recording so I could hear the context and the captain's actual wording.

 

[Reynolds]

Me too. Its a shame that in many cases memories conveniently edit and snip. I used to do a lot of off shore diving. We would be 60+ miles out, waiting out storms so we could dive, and no one even knew where life jackets were on the boats much,less have them on. From what I have seen, wearing life jackets on commercial boats is not very common.

 

[Wesley Briggman]

and no one even knew where life jackets were on the boats much,less have them on. From what I have seen, wearing life jackets on commercial boats is not very common.

I agree. I have never seen life jackets being worn as a general practice on commercial vessels However, having been a passenger on a ferry numerous times, the location of life jackets was always announced shortly after casting off.

The fact that none of the passengers on this duck-boat had a life jacket on, leads me to believe that the command was either not issued or not issued in a timely manner. It seems to me, under these weather conditions, common sense would dictate that the wise thing to do would be to issue the command that life jackets should be put on.

 

[Adonia]

As explained by a lawyer who has been involved in DUKW lawsuits, one of the main problems is that most of them have had canopies installed, and if they sink they trap the people under them and they are caught under it and this is made worse if the occupants are wearing life preservers as the flotation devices cause the people to pop to the top where they are then trapped and it is harder to swim free.

 

[Squire Robertsson]

All about the DUKW