Water Taxi Crash

Little story about gps and radar-coming back inbound from Winter harbour to cole harbour thru quatsino narrows-super foggy so on gps and radar- I'm driving on the gps and cross checking radar-with a look-out left seat. This had worked all the way from WH coming up to the sharp left turn in the narrows by the light-zero zero in fog-all of a sudden the gps doesn't agree with the radar- no warning flags-immediately stop. Wait about 10 seconds-look at the radar and the gps-they do not agree--all of a sudden the gps starts warning -lost sat contact-it would have taken us right onto land That passage is very deep right to the shore so I wouldn't have got a depth warning until too late. Always have a cross check and back -up going
 
beemer said:
How about recommending that ALL commercial vessels have Radar and develop a course that you are required to take ?
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? i am pretty sure anytime a dollar is exchanged on a boat it becomes commercial, which does fall under transport canada regulations. adverse conditions includes fog which radar is the standard requirement.
 
I saw this boat in person the other day. Looked like a real hard hit. There’s a spot on the way to Ahousat that’s a bit of a short cut in between some rocks that most water taxis choose to use. I’m wondering if that’s maybe where it happened. I heard it had nurses on board that were heading to Ahousat.
 
I hope a lot of boaters read this story and take it seriously. I have had countless boats on a collision course with mine over the years as they rely on GPS rather than common sense that there are hazards beyond land and rocks when you can’t see your course.
 
Back in 2016 I was travelling from Vancouver back to Crescent beach. Left Vancouver in brilliant sunshine but around T10 I hit dense fog.
Slowed right down and was watching my radar. Was getting close to BC Ferry terminals at Tsawwassen and started thinking that I was going to be crossing the ferry lanes. About that time I saw a huge red taget on my radar. Came to a full stop and let it pass in front of me. Just after it crossed the fog lifted a bit and I saw the back end of the ferry. Picture below. Funny thing is I was monitoring channel 16 and the ferry never hailed me or blew a horn that I heard. Have had radar on the boat ever since and run it even when sunny out so I get used to what targets look like and how far away they are. Can't imagine a boat in Tofino not having radar. Especially one carrying passengers.

IMG_1657.JPG
 
Thats truly mind boggling that a commercial water taxi or any commercial boat running on the west coast would not be equipped with radar. Sounds like its not the only time they've crashed into something. Sounds like complete negligence to me.
 
I knew that boat well when I lived there and knew for a fact that boat had Furuno radar in 2019. Perhaps it was malfunctioning?

For redundancy I run 2 gps units, one on navionics chip and one on c-map plus a radar.

That area where they hit that rock is one of several “short cuts” that all the locals…… when it was open in August it was a hotspot for tyees in shallow waters
 
trophywife said:
? i am pretty sure anytime a dollar is exchanged on a boat it becomes commercial, which does fall under transport canada regulations. adverse conditions includes fog which radar is the standard requirement.
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There's a ton of lodge boats without radars. I didn't have one on any boat I ran the first 5 years I guided in that environment. Don't get me wrong, in hindsight they all should have had them. I remember heading to the island from the northcoast and being surprised mostly all the charter boats had radars.

I highly doubt the mosquito fleet of Udrive boats around Langara run radars. What the point anyway? Many of those folks can't find north on a compass.
 
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As Aces mentioned it had radar. A wider view photo shows it.

The article references the Transportation Safety Board recommendation to not rely on a single electronic navigation aid and that the device the guy was using froze. Not sure if it's was a dual radar GPS unit or not.
 

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