An Opinion about Liveaboard Safety

The luxurious liveaboard, the Pacific Fleet's Vortex, an ex-Canadian Coast Guard vessel, ran into the shallows of a remote island at cruising speed during the night of May 9. It was packed with sleeping divers. An Undercurrent subscriber, Marissa Eckert, who runs Hidden Worlds Diving in Tulum, was onboard the Vortex and told Undercurrent what happened.

"We were crossing from Roca Partida to Socorro Island overnight. The captain had the boat on autopilot. One crew member was on watch from 10-12 pm, and he told us all several times that no one came to relieve him, so he just went to bed.

"The captain was supposed to relieve him but was apparently asleep. It was the crew member's first time on the Vortex working, and he went to bed at midnight and left the boat cruising at 16 knots straight toward Socorro. No one was awake.

"At 1:58 am, we crashed head first into a very tall rock wall on the side of the island, throwing us all from our beds. It trapped at least one couple in their room on the lower deck. Then the current, strong tides, and winds turned the boat and started bashing it into the rocks. We lost power because the lower deck was flooded in less than 30 minutes. All 25 of us abandoned the ship into one life raft and continued to be bashed into rocks in the life raft until the Mexican navy saved us."

What an extraordinary ordeal for the passengers. The vessel is a complete loss, as are the valuables of those onboard. Thankfully nobody paid for this error with their lives, and those rescued were full of praise for the exemplary conduct of the crew after the impact. (Undercurrent mid-May email)

Why am I not surprised by this story? Having spent six months as a dive guide aboard the Red Sea liveaboard Lady Jenny V in the early '90s, I learned a lot about the unwitnessed hazards that can affect those who trust their lives to others while they sleep.

More than once, after taking my turn on watch in the wheelhouse in the middle of the night, I discovered with just a cursory glance at the radar screen that my fellow crewmember, a deckhand from whom I'd taken over, had nearly put us aground in Sudan, or had sent us directly into the path of an oncoming freighter in the busy main shipping lane. (Thanks to the 'arc of visibility' of navigation lights, seeing both red and green of another vessel means you are on a collision course.)

It was self-preservation that drove me to regularly take over the watch of the crewmember who was to follow me, simply because he seemed unable to steer a set course.

So, just how safe are you on a liveaboard?

We've reported the tragic results of fires aboard vessels that were thought to be safely moored and crews were sleeping. The Conception tragedy of 2019 was a case in point.

This has hopefully led to liveaboards today having a roving watch when moored at night. But who's driving the boat when it's underway and you're sleeping?

Without impugning the professionalism of most boat crews, but bearing in mind the long layoffs due to the pandemic leading to possibly hiring less-than-experienced crews, maybe astute groups of passengers should instigate and rotate their own independent watch at night? Unattended helms should never happen.

Passengers book on liveaboard dive vessels just as they book into hotels with the assumption that everything is being done to assure their safety. That assumption may be misplaced.

- John Bantin