Yeah, I would assume so too. In rough seas, you'd probably get swept away from it unless you'd been able to get ahold of some rope & tied yourself off to the boat in some fashion.
Anyone following the story of the two teens missing at sea?
- Thread starter OrlandNole
- Start date
Yeah, I would assume so too. In rough seas, you'd probably get swept away from it unless you'd been able to get ahold of some rope & tied yourself off to the boat in some fashion.
We are not talking about drinking and driving, we are talking about boats. Theres plenty of people that drive watercraft when they are young and sometimes bad things happen, same with adults.
I suppose the reason we're so insistent when it comes to automobile use is that it's so easy to put other citizens at risk through poor driving performance. It's rather harder with boats. As far as I can tell, in Florida you have to be 18 to legally rent or lease a boat, but you can use an owned boat starting at age 14. So basically it's up to your parents. I'm ok with that, but if idiot kids are going to cost us millions of dollars in conducting a useless search for them, then yeah I'd be ok with the "nannystate" outlawing letting underage kids go boating on the open ocean. B/c we had dumb parents who didn't realize their dumb kids wouldn't have the sense "to come in out of the rain", we being an empathetic and compassionate society will of course search for them as much as is humanly logical and then some, ending at sunset tonight. But that being the case, once you start emptying my pockets with your behavior, I think some regulation becomes a consideration. If we as a society ever reach the point of being willing to say to hell with your dumb kids in the face of a tragedy like this, then you can boat whenever, send them to the ocean in a jet ski at age 9 if you want to. But I'd be willing to look at more control under the current situation.
Last edited:
How bout a combo? No laws regarding who can do what but a hard and fast policy that we as a society, will commit our normally deployed resources to try and save your butt but no more than that. IE. Helos,C-130S, boats that would be out there anyway for training,drug intervention etc. can look for you but we're not sending guys out of Canaveral up to NC. Of course you're free to get people to pony up their own resources to find little jack and johnny.
General rule is you don't leave the boat until you have to step or swim up from it as it sinks.
As for those complaining about no one stopping them. You simply can't. I've seen people head out into storms like that and warned th not to, but they did anyway. There isn't anything you can do about it. The parents aren't to blame either. It's on the boys themselves. They choose to disobey their parents rules. They choose to head out when everyone else was headed in. They couldn't handle what they got themselves into. Like most boating accidents it was the result of a string of bad decisions and actions. But, it was all their decisions.
I mean you take their keys away, or tell the marina not to give them the boat, or report them to the coast guard. Or like, raise kids who will listen to you. All of these options seem better than losing a pair of sons. RIP.
I agree with you, the kids made a bad decision, not anyone's fault but theirs.
However, didn't the parents give them permission to go out, as long as they checked in with Grandma at 2pm, which was routine for them to do?
Or did the parents tell them not to go out that day?
What he's saying is right, even though the insult at the end is cruel and unnecessary.
A ton of money was wasted on this search that could have been much better spent in other ways.
I am a professional yacht captain and the ocean can be very dangerous. I have seen monster waves show up and dissappear in minutes. It is always nerve racking even in a 100 footer. Technology has allowed us to go farther and faster than ever on the water. All it takes is a little 500 dollar Epirb to save your life on any water. Inshore, offshore, or lake. We carry two on the boats and we have two personal ones. If you boat do yourself a favor and pick one up. We use ours for hiking too.
https://www.acrartex.com/products/c...or-beacons/aqualink-plb/#sthash.f9lBansl.dpbs
https://www.acrartex.com/products/c...or-beacons/aqualink-plb/#sthash.f9lBansl.dpbs
They were told not to go out into the Atlantic. They were supposed to stay on inland waters. At least that's what I heard.
Cheers. I quit my old job and have been a Captain and Instructor for the past two years. Should have done it years ago.
Yeah, it could have been wasted looking for drugs!
Yep. While I wouldn't say wasted the point is the money would have been used one way or another. The complaining about the one cent out of their pocket for the search is unnecessary. That one cent would have been used anyway. At least in our Country they searched.
You know, I like that we are a people that would put so many resources into an attempt to find these kids, as unlikely as it was to be successful. I think it says something good. And every now and then we'll have it end in a "miracle": Whether it's kids lost at sea, miners in a collapsed coal mine, sailors trapped in a stricken submarine, etc, every now and then we'll succeed.
Anyhow your idea is interesting. Consider the opposite extreme to what normally happens: Suppose NO govt money could go to efforts like this, and it had to be up to the public to send in donations to search for these kids. I believe millions would have poured in -- probably at least a dollar for every tenth person in this country, so tens of millions. Still there could be an issue on day 1/day 2. But your combo idea would allow for govt resources to be there on day one and day two, then when private funding had built up sufficiently it could fund several more days and more extensive searches. It won't happen I don't think, but it's interesting.
I have been running my boat for 6 years now. I have been in the industry around 11 years. Where are you based at? We are in Saint Lucia for the season.
Some of the comments from the parents, Ex'es, stepparents involved were conflicting, but as best as I could tell, parents with supervision on the Friday in question did give them permission to go out, but it was supposed to be "understood" that they were to stay in the inlet. Of course they joked on facebook about heading to Bermuda. I think the true goal was something a little beyond the inlet but not hugely far: They were known by friends to have a favorite fishing spot that was four and a half miles offshore.
They were supposed to do an hourly check-in with one of the moms. She texted her son at 2:30 PM but got no response. Most likely they'd already gotten swamped at that point in time by the initial big storm. Why the coast guard was not involved until after 5 PM is an interesting question, probably partly due to "normalcy bias". But I doubt it would have made much difference, other than maybe finding their bodies.
I mostly run day charters on 30-50ft sailing cats here in Tampa and Sarasota Bays. I also do ASA instruction. I just have a 50 ton ticket right now, but should be able to file soon to bring it up to 100. Will probably do some longer charters and possibly some deliveries this winter as I'm getting more established here. I've got three little anchors here so I won't be moving down to the islands or taking a job like yours unless my wife leaves me. One of the reasons I changed careers is because I was on the road too much with my old one. You running Charters?
Figured all the new posts were about reports coming out that they can't find the boat now. Not figuring out how to get this boat back ASAP and just losing it seems odd given the huge story and search. With all the resources and money (and attention) it seems like you make sure this boat is in eye contact until a Salvage/Tow boat gets there.....that day.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/palm-beach/fl-missing-teen-boaters-recap-20150803-story.html
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/palm-beach/fl-missing-teen-boaters-recap-20150803-story.html
A media report last Monday said the coast guard had "anchored" the boat in place to serve as a positional marker to base further searches off of. I didn't think anything of it at the time, as I thought the article really was quoting the coast guard, and they would no better than me. But can you really anchor a 19 foot boat in place 57 miles offshore? Isn't that off the continental shelf or whatever it's called, and in Deep water? I guess it could have sunk, or if it wasn't anchored in one place, it kept moving up the eastern coast.
We are strictly private. Owner, family, and friends. We work for a wonderful family and move around quite a bit. It stays interesting. Long way from home quite a bit though. We always seem to miss football season too. Flying from Saint Martin or Saint Lucia for the football game is a little steep on time and money.
He called them shark food and dumba's in consecutive posts. I don't care about his opinion on the money spent, but these are 14 year old kids w/ parents. Is it really that cool to talk that way about them?
They found Steve whatever his name is a couple of days after he and the football players flipped their boat in the Gulf. Now of course the Gulf Stream plays a bigger factor in this case.
Not sure I see what the big deal is unless they had family who were know to be active members posting in this place. People say over the top stuff like this all the time here.
The reality is that money was wasted. It had a better use (certainly better than looking for drugs) to everyone it was taken from.
With regards to 'one cent', well, no single raindrop holds itself responsible for the flood...
No kidding, with a blatantly racist name like "Savage" Steve, I probably wouldn't pretend to be up in arms over PC BS. No one on here knows them and while I wouldn't purposefully try to harm their parents or anyone close to them so the faux outrage is just cute.
Last edited:
I used some over the top language as well in one post, and I hope it was clear by the context that I was trying to make a larger point about society. I would never be insensitive that way if they have relatives on here. And certainly wouldn't be that way to the parents........irrespective of my opinion of their parenting skills.
It hadn't occurred to me that his name was somehow racist. I know that mine could be considered such. But I really did bear a good resemblance to the black character Spearchucker Jones on Mash, and the spear and "chucking" it into the turf really is a play on words about my allegiance to FSU. It's caused trouble on other boards though. I do lean some to the right politically, and I remember once on the Wake board some Libs disagreed with my opinion and wanted to get me taken off the board as some raging white racist, lol.
I'm with you on this.
I mean why throw around casual insults when there's no need to - the kids are dead, they paid the ultimate price for poor decision making. I would assume we're all better than to belittle dead children - I mean sure, if you must, have at it, but I'd think we're all a lil above that.
if nothing else, by adding an unnecessary insult, he totally took the focus off his otherwise valid point - so it was counterproductive to the real jist of what he was saying.
You know I've always both liked it, and simultaneously been a little uncomfortable with it, knowing some people might get a bad idea. If this new Rivals platform has some kind of option for you to put personal info in there, maybe I'll add a short explanation sometime.
It was less an issue in the past as I mostly used to only post about hoops, back when we had a free basketball board where recruiting could be discussed. And out of the core of oldtimers that had been there for years, most people at some point knew one of my stories (I was the black guy who'd mostly only played ball on the playgrounds, but won some dunk contests at 5 foot 11
) and some of those posters knew me by sight.
Last edited:
...............Oh, and of course the "'87" is the year I got my FSU bachelors. But I think a lot of people do that in their screenname.
They were just running out to catch some fish and invited one of my friend's kids, but he passed. They were never going to the Bahamas. The "stay in the inlet" falls under the wink-wink nod-nod umbrella. You don't need 26 gallons on gas to fish in the inlet.
Crazy that parent don't have these, but they don't. Had this discussion with a buddy who has a younger kid who takes a boat out. Just stupid...especially when the family owns a marine supply store - missing kids, not my guy.
That's almost too crazy.....unbelievable.
Wow. Thank God for that
Dang it!......Why couldn't they just wait out the storm?! There were 7 hours of daylight left. Uggggh. This would haunt me for the rest of my days as one of those parents.
.
And I echo with your sentiment of liking that we are a society of people who value human life more than money. But is throwing money and legislation at a problem always or even usually the best answer? It is largely agreed that the death penalty has been proven to be little if any deterrent to violent crime as most are committed by those under the influence of drugs or rage or mental deffect. Therefore logical thinking usually doesn't come into play when these decisions to kill,mame rape etc. are made. So the only answer is to segregate (throw money housing) these perpetrators to segregate them from the rest of society. That seems to be the the general reaction that we have to violent crime.
By that rationale notifying everyone that you will boat at your own risk (to a point) would prevent little or no dangerous/irresponsible behavior. Conversely......over time...does the societal safety net actually promote people to be a bit more lax about supervising youngsters and others who are taking some known risks? If...over time people learned that when catastrophic circumstance occurred only divine intervention or luck would save them them would most parents/guardians simply exert more effort in safeguarding their loved ones?
In this case..... if these parents had studied the weather more closely would they have more closely guarded their children. Granted...on most Florida summer days there is a strong possibility of dangerous weather that will pop up unexpectedly in some part of most of our areas.
Point being .....even though our natural reaction is to bring whatever resources we can to try to salvage life, to make ourselves feel more human and placate our need to feel like good members of the species, if we knew that a sea change (no pun) in our policy actually saves more lives through prevention vs. a reactionary attitude could we,would we ever institute a apparently harsh inhuman policy that is actually MORE humane?
BTW...just spitballing here.
Latest posts
-
Football FSU football debuts turquoise uniforms in Spring Showcase- Latest: USMC_Steamer_Nole
-
-
-
