Tragic Boating accident

[Steve]

This weekend the Houma (Louisiana) Oilmen's Fishing Rodeo was held. It is attended by about 4000 people in the oil industry and is a very nice affair with many of the service companies having stands and "hospitality*camps" in and around Cocodrie, La.*an oil and fishing center, (See, they can coincide).** Thursday night about 8:30 a group of 5*left a crawfish boil held at a camp on one of the canals, they were headed a few miles down the canal to another camp where they were lodging. They were in a 24 foot open sportfishing boat. Friday morning the body of one of the group was discovered by a worker on the deck of a barge moored in the canal, the rest of the group 4 men were found in the submerged fishing boat. Apparently they had run into the barge shortly after leaving the crawfish boil. On impact one was thrown onto the barge were he died, the rest killed on impact or drowned when the boat hit the barge and sunk. The dead were from Louisiana and Texas.
Not much else has been released yet, the barge was being used in a construction project the owners insist it had the legal lights on that night.
A very sad accident, not trawler related except to remind all of us to be very careful out on the water. One split second can change a wonderful outing to tragedy for five families, and many others.
Steve

 

[Forkliftt]

I heard about this also Steve. So many lost lives at one time.Steve

 

[Baker]

It is pretty easy to misread lights at night or just have your mind play tricks on you and "tell you" what you want to see.

 

[Jib73]

Gosh, how terrible. What a shame. Let's help eachother stay sharp out there Captains. . .

 

[Keith]

Yea, you can know the lights all you want, but you see some crazy stuff at night. I was heading down the ICW at night one time, and had the weirdest light pattern in front of me. There was a flashing amber which designated the front of a barge, but he was way over to my starboard side (kinda basically coming at me on the wrong side of the channel). Had some white, some green, lots of yellow work lights... I slowed down to basically idle trying to figure all this out.

The captain of the tow turned his spotlight on his barge... they were totally sideways in the ICW! I guess in the process of turning around. I just eased around his stern after talking to him on the radio.

I couldn't help but wonder what would have happened with a drunk speedboater coming through there at night at high speed.

 

[Baker]

Keith, we had the same thing happen in the Lydua Anne channel near Port A. The tow had nosed up into the sand for the night and we couldn't figger it out. There were 4 of us on the flybridge with a very good radar and spotlight. We all agreed to go around the left side and leave him to starboard. When the radio crackled to life it was the tow captain watching us and asking us what we were doing....he called us by name because we had talked to him on the outbound. We told him what we were doing. ANd he said that he hoped we had wheels on that boat because you are gonna need them going around my bow....it is in the sand!!!! Whoops!!!

Like you said, at 35mph it would have been game over.