LAKE GEORGE---Although so far there's no companion bill in the state Assembly which would be needed before the bill could become a law, the Senate has approved a bill reintroduced by Sen. Betty Little (R-Queensbury) which would strengthen the state laws that regulates tour boats and other public vessels.

Little first sponsored the boating safety legislation in early 2006 after 20 senior citizens from Michigan and Ohio died on Oct. 2, 2005 when the 38-foot tour boot Ethan Allen capsized and sank on Lake George. That bill stalled in the Senate and she reintroduced a modified bill earlier this year.

The boat's captain, Richard Paris, 76, and the vessel's owners, Shoreline Cruises Inc. of Lake George, pleaded guilty last month to a misdemeanor charge of violating the state's Navigation Law by failing to have more than one crew member on board at the time of the fatal accident.

The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause of the capsizing of the Ethan Allen was the vessel's insufficient stability to resist the combined forces of a passing wave or waves, a sharp turn, and the resulting involuntary shift of passengers to the port side of the vessel.

The safety board said the vessel's stability was insufficient because it carried 48 persons where post-accident stability calculations demonstrated that it should have been permitted to carry only 14 persons rather than the 50 for which it was certificated. Contributing to the cause of the accident was the failure to reassess the vessel's stability after it had been modified because there was no clear requirement to do so", the NTSB report issued in late July, 2006, concluded.

However, in an exclusive interview last month with The North Country Gazette, Robert Ford, the NTSB investigator-in-charge of the Ethan Allen probe, says that the federal investigation was seriously flawed, evidence was withheld and he has requested that Congress reopen the investigation. http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/2007/032907EvidenceWithheld.html The original metal pole and canvas top of the Ethan Allen was replaced with a wooden top in 1989 by Scarano Boat Building of Albany in 1989. According to state law, it was the responsibility of Shoreline to inform the state of the modifications and to update its certificate of inspection at that time which apparently they did not do.

The Senate's legislation would require that modifications made to boats be reported to, and approved by, the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Any modifications that would affect boat stability would have to be approved by the agency beforehand.

The bill also strengthens the law in regard to operating a tour boat without sufficient crew members, making the law more clear, and increase penalties for those who repeatedly violate the law.

A public vessel that carries more than 20 passengers would be required to have at least two exits and it would be mandated that boats that carry more than 49 passengers have marine radar for surface navigation. 4-19-07

© 2007 North Country Gazette