Topic starter
03/05/2010 5:17 pm
I have been asked about tours on the Graceful Ghost. For those who don't know yet, we no longer own the Graceful Ghost. We sold it about a year ago and it has been operated by Capt. Ron Gibbs. All last year, someone who has not 2 brain cells to rub together, kept rattling the Coast Guard's cage about the Graceful Ghost, so they finally had to do an inspection. Amazingly, the boat passed inspection except for stability, so it is not allowed to operate with more than 6 passengers until the stability issue is remedied. I was surprised to find that the sponsons we had installed on the Ghost years ago had been removed and replaced with some new sponsons that apparently did not work. So now they have to pull the boat out of the water and put the old sponsons back on, or beef up the new ones. We were not consulted about the new sponsons, although we suggested beefing up the old ones when the boat was out of the water this past winter. If this had been done, I have no doubt the boat would have passed.
And, as expected, the CG has told every tour boat operator on Caddo Lake that they can carry no more than 6 passengers, which is going to hurt the very whistle blower who brought all this on. A lot. Also, every tour boat operator is being required to get a license. The person who ratted on one boat ended up ratting on everybody including themselves.
In defense of the CG, they really wanted nothing to do with the Caddo Lake operations, and were forced to respond to someone who just wouldn't shut up.
The owner of the Ghost says he doesn't have enough money to pull the boat out of the water ($5000) plus the cost of new sponsons. He is currently doing tours on a pontoon boat and trying to raise money.
I will update this situation as I learn more.
Topic starter
05/05/2010 4:41 pm
Update to the update
I have been talking to Capt. Ron about the Graceful Ghost. He is moving forward with the construction of sponsons for the Ghost. He allows that if the CG hadn't forced it, they would not have taken the boat out of the water during the winter, and not found a lot of rot in the hull where the sponsons had been and in other places. However, with the CG involved, there was no easy fix. Every step of the repairs had to be documented and follow certain guidelines, making the repairs 10 times more expensive. And of course the CG made them do a lot of other frivolous but expensive things. They gave Ron a laundry list of to dos for the next year or so.
And here is one for Alan Bates. The second deck of the Ghost is covered with an awning, a flat horizontal awning. The CG said that awning constituted a third deck and deducted a third from his passenger count because of windage from said awning. In other words, they considered the awning a sail if the boat heeled a certain amount. But how could it heel a certain amount when the stability rules would only allow the boat to heel a few degrees, at best? How could it remotely be considered a sail. The sail area of that boat is in the vertical superstructure, but apparently that was not considered at all.
He was also not given consideration in the weight of passengers due to the fact the boat is operated on protected waters. They also erred in considering windage at all according to the CFI, which I sent a copy of to Ron. Those rules and regs are on the Internet for all to see.
In spite of it all, Ron is optimistic and hopes to get rolling again by Memorial Day.
06/05/2010 2:19 am
Any 'mandated requirements' may be appealed to the local OCMI then District then Commandant. First step is to ask for "reconsideration".....get all ducks in line and write a "decent" letter stating your reasons, CFR sections involved. Reconsideration is the magic word out of the gate.
An awning [nondetachable] was found to be the cause of several causalities on a DUKW causality in Arkansas a few years back.
Stability came into play in an incident in New York State a couple years ago. People in the 21st Century weigh more now than they did in the past.
The is a member of Congress from the state of Minnesota involved in the current hubbub on licensing issues......which started I do believe in a large Lake partially in the State of Texas and a bordering State.
Life ain't simple anymore......sad in many cases....especially so to many who experienced the "oldtimers" who were still working in the late 60's and early 70's who started on the River in their teens and learned from the ratchet or oil can on up to the Knowledge Box or ' The Chief '.
Those were the days my friend and we thought they would never end!
Topic starter
06/05/2010 3:26 pm
Thanks for that info and I will pass is on to Ron.
Here's what a friend of mine said about DUKs: They were built to sink.
Well, Caddo Lake is on the border between Texas and Louisiana but so is Toledo Bend, but I don't know of any tours being operated on that lake. It might deal with fishing guides. But it probably is Caddo Lake, which is the water on which the Graceful Ghost floats.
Topic starter
07/05/2010 4:11 pm
There is also Lake Texoma on the, what else, Texas/ Oklahoma border. Probably no boat tours there either, but lots of fishing.
08/05/2010 12:34 pm
Yes, Lexie,
I've had a few go-rounds with the USCG about wind area. One guy even called upper deck railings "sails" because someone might, some day, perhaps, maybe string out a banner along them.
It is those maybes that drive designers crazy. Maybe the sky will fall - what about THAT! Maybe there will be naphtha all over the deck, all passengers will be smoking during a raging midnight storm with 20 foot waves on the Ohio River and no rudder - how will the boat be saved? The USCG "building codes" are so loose and open to individual inspectors' wild interpretations that one never knows what foolish idea will be inflicted on a boat.
All inspectors are not that bad, but there are enough of them to make life miserable. I once had a guy insist that window glass be held in place with steel clips attached to steel on an all-aluminum boat!
Nothing can be done about it. An appeal can take two years or more to make its way through the bureaucracy and no boat owner can tie up his money that long. The USCG simply cannot understand that an unfinished boat costs money every minute it waits for such a decision. The only money they understand is what is in their wallets.
Topic starter
08/05/2010 3:55 pm
I think a lot of it comes from inspectors who have little, if any, real world experience. They've got their nose in a book and understand little else. Jim and I, with our 100+ years combined experience on boats, knew exactly what the wind would do to our boat. And we knew that the more people we had on the boat, the BETTER it would do in wind. But according to rule such and such, that is not the case.