Taki-Too report out

[Pilar]

http://www.katu.com/news/images/stor...ooo_report.pdf

[WP]

No fish and no dollar is worth that level of risk...at least in my not so humble opinion. A tragedy that could have easily been prevented with due caution. A couple of things stood out for me: Do not cross an angry bar without urgent need; underpowered boats are more risky; PFDs need to be close at hand, or better on you when in poor conditions! When in doubt about the advisability of going out...stay home!
WP

[Old Coot]

Today, 8/28, the KATU website has a printable report of the Tillamook Sheriff's report of the Taki-Tooo disaster available for print-out.

IMHO it should be required reading for anyone going over the bar - any bar.

[ 08-28-2003, 12:10 PM: Message edited by: Old Coot ]

[bullhead]

God bless all the survivors and the families of the deceased. What a horrible day and tragedy!

I agree, that all should read this report.

Major lessons learned for me:

...when in doubt, don't go.
...wear PFD's in any questionable situations
...If ever caught in rough situations, stay committed and square to the waves.

Safe boating!

[Slow Roll]

Read this last night before bed. Man, did I have some bad dreams because of it. Kept imagining it was my family on board that boat and all I could do was watch from the jetty.
Still get the chills and a bit sick when I think of it.

May god bless those who survived and those families that lost loved ones.

Makes me even more respectful of the ocean and its power.

Paul B.

[Pilar]

For the most part the survivors were thrown clear, (Tamara) or trapped in the cabin. In a small boat rolling over you probably wont have a cabin to protect you from hitting your head, being pounded into the bottom by the surge or otherwise dying by a means not related to drowning.

PFD's are like seat belts in an airplane. You should wear them. But when the plane hits the ground in a ball of fire, the seatbelt did little to save the passengers. If your boat sinks in a controlled manner and you are wearing your PFD you will most likely survive the sinking. If you fall out of the boat or otherwise end up in the water unexpectedly the PFD is the ket to survival.

In a broach and roll scenario, all bets are off.

Doug Davis did the very thing he did last, time and time again. He did it for a living. He went out on days when the bar was closed to all other vessels. On days like the last one for him. All of the other crossings were successful, it only took the one that went wrong. Any of you that have stood on the North jetty at Tillamook and watched the pukers go out on a gnarly day know exactly what I am saying.

You can pick the time you cross in your small boat, why not pick the flood tide and avoid the nightmare these people faced?

[Sturgeon Tom]

I just read the report. I agree think everone should read it. It really makes you think what they went through and what YOU never want to go through.
I feel for the familys of the people who were lost on this trip.
I was surprised that one person booked with the Taki-Tooo after his other trip was canceled buy another charter captin because of the conditions.
Pilar you said it very well. Common sense can save a lot of lives.

[Sea Jypzee]

If it's not already there, I think this should be in the LIG or Community board as well. There's enough people there who may try to venture out into the salt someday without having all the knowledge they need. Would be good for them to see exactly what CAN happen if they make a bad decision.

[Abalone]

I will keep my opinions about this tragedy to myself but I am wondering how many people out there feel the way I do about the way NOAA predicts the weather ? Many times I look at the weather report and wonder what is really going on. You hear a report that sounds like a bad ocean
only to learn the next day the Ocean was flat or you go down there and find out that the Ocean is too rough. NOAA told me that they are real conservative and when they make a prediction it is based on the worst condition for that day. In otherwords It can be perfectly flat all day but maybe
in the Afternoon there will be a couple of big swells, so they report the Ocean as big swells all day.

I believe this methode undermines the credibility of the report and adds to a lot of confusion. An experienced Skipper will know this but I believe many people get totally confused. The VHF report is a better system but how many people listen to the VHF before they head to the Coast.
Many people decide to go fishing, make the drive to the coast and are determinded to go out.

I have seen a lot of angry fisherman cursing the Coast Guard. Personally I thank them for what they do.

I am not saying that this was a contributing factor in this incident but lets face it. The biggest
risk factor going out the is the weather. I believe accurate, honest reporting is critical as well
as sound judgement on the part of boat operators. Keep in mind there are many bays such
as Nehalem that do not have the coast guard tending the bar to warn people off.

Just my .02 worth.

[corrirod]

For me, the best information is the buoy reports, but unfortunately there are only 2 buoys to extract data from on the north/central coastline. I wish there was a way for every bar entrance to have a data buoy as I think this would give a better visualization of how the weather/water is trending and is currently.

Now all we have to do is convince the rest of the state to help pitch in for the cost.......yeah right.

[Born to be Wild]

The ocean was forecast to be very dangerous up to 4 or 5 days ahead of the Garibaldi accident and never did get down graded. If I remember right it was forecast for 12' swells.

If you do a search on salty dogs you would see we had a Depoe Bay fishing trip sceduled with a lot of the dogs. We cancelled it by Thursday. That's not only dangerous conditions for the dogs but for the larger charters as well.

I was in Garibaldi delivering tackle Friday night the night before the accident. If I had known they were going to attempt a bar crossing the next day I would have stayed there that night to photograph rough bar crossings the next morning as I have done here in Depoe over the years. But I never drempt they would have tried it the next morning. Kind of glad I wasn't there as Pete our mod was.

Besides the dangerous forecast the charters had first hand visual of the bar as they looked it over for 45 minutes or so before they decided to take their chances. That's where the mistake was made. End of story.

There were some very intense threads on salty dogs and the main forum regarding this accident starting within an hour or so of the accident as Pete who was there at Barview called Jennie and she immediately posted.

Tragic but it was an accident waiting to happen. The forecast was beneficial to them but they did not heed the warnings. I can only hope that the charters from Garibaldi to Newport have learned from this and will not push the envelope in the future.

There is a reason they call the location on the north jetty at Barview and the area at the Channel House in Depoe Bay, "chicken point".

Dan

[ 08-29-2003, 04:14 PM: Message edited by: DepoeBayDan ]

[Mark Mc]

Abalone, I'll admit that I too have made some critical remarks about the accuracy of forecasts. But I make them somewhat half-joking. I understand that forecasting is a difficult science. The people who do it are highly skilled. There are so many variables, and weather systems are so dynamic. Fisher-folks need to realize that a forecast is just that, FOREward looking, based on information available now or in the past. Nobody ever made a promise that forecasts were accurate to some percentage. This may sound kind of harsh, but I think it's a copout to lay blame on the weather forecasters for things not turning out the way they thought it would, without taking any responsibility to investigate the weather yourself by the other available means. Thanks to the internet, there are many, many sources of ocean weather information. Like the real-time bouys Rod mentioned (do you have the dial-a-bouy phone number handy?), and other real time & forward looking models. This is all in addition to the standard NOAA forecast that we like to cuss so much. There are other ideas like a barometer on the boat that will give you advance warning that something is going to happen...before the warning shows up on the NOAA weather radio. I guess what I'm saying is, take matters into your own hands and use as much information as possible to assess the weather, rather than relying on one source of information & expecting it to be "right." Even with all this, it sometimes does come down to being at the coast, or going out a few miles, or going out 20 miles, to find out how it really is. Many times I've gone 10, 20, or even 30 miles from the harbor only to turn around. By the same token, sometimes there is the apparent "miracle" of going through moderately lousy weather for many miles, and all of a sudden 20 miles offshore there is a magic line and it flattens out. These magic lines between good & bad weather will never show up on a NOAA report. Nature is way to clever to let NOAA or anyone else figure her out completely. And with the exception of the Columbia bar, NOAA does not give exact reports of what each bar is expected to do at various times during the day. It's up to the individual to make this assessment. This has been discussed in earlier posts. (i.e. 10 ft swell predicted, minus 2 ft tide...what do you think is going to happen at a shallow bar?).

Reading your post, I think what you're saying is, this might be fine for the experienced folks, but the occasional visitor from the valley just expects the one forecast to be "correct" and this is a false expectation that leads to trouble.... I'm not quite sure what to do about this other than some public education; good luck to us in changing the mindset right?

Thanks for your thoughts.......Mark