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LAKE GEORGE---The U.S. Coast Guard has recommended that operators of small boats raise weight estimates for passengers from 140 pounds to a single standard of 185 pounds.
The Coast Guard was responding to recommendations made last month by the National Safety Transportation Board following its investigation of the Lady D, a pontoon water taxi that capsized in Baltimore Harbor in March 2004.
The NTSB determined that insufficient intact stability and overloading had caused the small passenger pontoon-style vessel to capsize when it encountered strong winds and waves in Baltimore's Northwest Harbor. They said that the Coast Guard's regulatory stability test standards used an out-of-date passenger weight standards that contributed to the overloading.
Mark Rosenker, acting NTSB chairman, said earlier this month that he expects that investigators probing the fatal boating accident on Lake George last October will conclude that the cause of the tragedy were modifications made to the vessel affecting the stability and the weight on board at the time the vessel capsized.
The 38-foot glass enclosed tour boat Ethan Allen capsized and sank in 70 feet of water on Oct. 2, killing 20 of the 47 passengers on board who were on an hour-long fall foliage tour along the Lake George shoreline.
According to Warren County Sheriff Larry Cleveland, the Ethan Allen would have been more than a ton over capacity with the Coast Guard's new weight recommendations. If the new guidelines of 185 pounds had been in place, the Ethan Allen would have been 12 passengers over capacity.
Last fall, Gov. George Pataki sent a letter to Admiral Thomas Collins, Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, requesting that they expedite their decision regarding tour boat capacity. He also directed the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation to raise the state weight standard from 140 pounds to 174 pounds. The 140 pound limit was set in 1942 when the average weight of Americans was significantly less.
Wendy Gibson, a spokeswoman for the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, said New York's standard is mandatory and applies to state waters such as Lake George while the Coast Guard's federal recommendations haven't been passed into law yet and are applicable only to vessels operating on federal jurisdictional waters, which include Lake Champlain and the Great Lakes.
The NTSB's investigation of the Ethan Allen tragedy is ongoing. 4-27-06
© 2006 North
Country Gazette
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