I rode one in Boston. Even took the wheel for a bit when it was in the Charles. I’d do it again, too.
Duck boat tours are a lot of fun. I’d go again anytime.
The tragedy in Branson was caused by an unexpected storm. No one, in any boat would be safe in those heavy waves.
Not during a severe thunderstorm warning, that’s for sure.
I had initially heard 7 deaths; the actual toll is 17, which included 9 members of one family, one of them a baby. 
Only if one didn’t check out the NWS (or another weather site) in advance. Don’t know their procedures, or what the captain did/not do, but with a weather check, there’s no way that DUKW should have gone out.
NWS issued a watch 8 hrs in advance, & a warning ½ before it capsized, acdording to this Washington Post article.
ETA: I have, it was fun, but kinda checked it off my bucket list already.
They are calling the guy driving the thing a ‘Driver’ not a ‘Captain’.
I have a problem right off the bat.
Was it a DUKW conversion of a Deuce-and-a-half Army TRUCK? From WWII? Driver is appropriate. Riding in it unless paid to do so by Uncle Sam 70 years ago is unwise.
Yeah, it was from WW2 era according to the local news here.
The same period when they were teaching Sherman tanks to swim. More successful than one might expect, but they were still tanks.
They look wobbly on the street. Or top-heavy, I think. One capsized in Hot Springs in '99, the canopy is what prevented people from escaping and swimming about 20 feet to shore. IIRC.
I’ve ridden in on around San Diego/Coronado. No way in Hell would I get on one if there was more than a light breeze. Loaded those things have shit for freeboard.
I duck boats whenever I’m in the water and one comes too close. (I can swim underwater pretty well.)
Are those the boats I saw 20 years ago in Baltimore Harbor? If they are, not a chance in the world I would get in one.
Actually, I’ve seen articles that state the captain survived but the driver did not. Sounds like perhaps the guy at the wheel was the driver, but the guy in charge was the captain.
Oh, okay. I feel some better. Not that I will ever ride on one.
Sure. They sound a lot safer than cars.
Done the tour in Boston three times. (As a visitor myself, and with visitors since I moved here.)
Wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. Wouldn’t do it with a thunder storm approaching though. And I wonder what the emergency procedures are. There’s not much room to put on life jackets if conditions call for it, and apparently no time when they actually become essential.
I might ride in one, depending on who the skipper and first mate were.
Those waves were nothing (although the wind was strong, there was probably neither time nor space enough for real waves to develop); an ocean-worthy vessel would have ridden them just fine.
This boat was just not meant for anything but fair weather.
It’s not even so much the life jackets or lack thereof, it’s the question: how are you getting out when it sinks? The WW2 ones were open topped. This one had a metal canopy—which by itself isn’t terrible, despite jacking with the vessel’s COG—and slide-down plastic windows. You aren’t getting out of that with the windows down unless you go out the back, and good luck getting through the 15-30 panicking lard asses in front of you when it starts taking on water. Add that capsizing is probably going to happen—see, f’d up center of gravity mentioned above—and getting out of that death trap is going to be a serious problem. Even if the windows are secured out of the way, you with your PFD are going to float to the top of that awning, and AIUI, swimming down to the windows and out is pretty counterintuitive. Especially in a mass of panicking people.
We haven’t even discussed the maintenance, or lack thereof, in the tourist Duck community. Go see some of the NTSB reports from other disasters those things have had. They were great, 70 years ago, for putting soldiers on a beach, and getting them off of it, when there wasn’t a better way to do so. It’s more risk than I’m comfortable with taking for a pleasure trip in the USA, even though the vast, vast majority of the time, the worst that will happen is a good sunburn.
FWIW, I’ve felt this way about this particular class of vehicle before this specific tragedy, mainly due to other swampings (Philadelphia, Hot Springs) but I have no problem riding a water taxi or, e.g., the car ferry between Galveston Island and Bolivar, Texas.
I don’t think its irrational to fear them, much the way you would fear a hasty roadside carnival ride. Or the unfortunate decision to eat gas station sushi. I happen to be an anxious/phobic person. Pros and cons of such things over-ride my ability to enjoy them, so I avoid it whenever possible. Yea, I am the party-pooper.