This is a tragic story, as five people are dead and one is still missing, but a whale-watch boat capsized just off Vancouver Island, having sailed from… Tofino. We recently discussed what appears to be one of the most awful restaurants in the world, located in Tofino. I’m sure there’s no connection.
I am beginning to wonder if this is a very rare case of a whale capsizing a large craft, though…
It looks like it sank in pretty shallow water; the bow is sticking straight up into the air. So, probably not a whale.
Police are on the lookout for a 164-year-old white whale. The Captain wants him for questioning.
One of the articles mentioned how top heavy the boat was to begin with. I imagine that someone yelled “Thar she blows!” and everyone ran to one side, causing it to capsize. I still don’t see how 5 people managed to drown. Those boats normally are ringed with self deploying lifeboats.
That good ship and crew was a bone to be chewed
When the whales of November came early
My friend’s daughter works for Jamie’s. She is usually in the office/restaurant, but goes out on the boat about once a week. Thank God she was not out on it this time. We were all a mess waiting to hear if she was on the boat or not. Poor Morgan is a mess. She knew some of the people who died.
I’m sorry some of you seem to think this is something to make light of.
Misread the tile and thought it said WHILE watching boat capsize.
My first thought was hoping that whoever was watching was also moving quickly to a rescue.
I’ve been on that boat recently. The area it went down is quite rocky (many uncharted rocks), and is often where they go to see sea lions on the rocks.
I would bet that they hit something, and went down quite quickly. Passengers all wear lifejackets, so I would guess that the dead people got separated from the rest, and then got hypothermia. That water is DAMN cold. Even a slight breeze would have blown the liferafts away from people in the water. I have personal experience with this.
Tragic situation. The ocean is unforgiving and cruel. Nothing can be taken for granted.
Not likely at all. This boat (in my experience) was very, very stable. I will still go with my guess that they hit an uncharted rock.
This is what I am hearing, too.
Other commenters have said 27 was a very light load for this boat, so the idea of a crowd rush to one side destabilizing it sounds unlikely.
I am having trouble figuring out how five or six people could get killed in a relatively gentle sinking within sight of land. One or two, almost inescapably. But the death rate seems high for the situations as it’s been described so far.
I did find it odd that it’s the same fairly obscure location as that crappy restaurant we were discussing, though.
In water temperatures that cold (probably just over 10 degrees), you could potentially lose consciousness in 30 - 45 minutes, and be dead in 90 minutes. A lifejacket simply makes it easier to find the body.
I was on that sucker last year and the year before. Bray skippered last time out. It sure as hell never occurred to me that it could sink like that, in a heartbeat seems like. We weren’t required to wear lifejackets. They just did a 5-minute blurb at the start of the festivities - where the jackets are, how to put them on, etc. Bray quipped at the end of the tour (a three hour tour), “I’m glad we saw whales this time out so I don’t have to re-issue tickets for everybody.” Tongue-in-cheek. I feel really bad for everybody involved. It’s a small, beautiful community. They’ll be shell-shocked for quite a while I reckon.
It’s a terrible thing and huge news on Vancouver Island.
Looks like I was wrong on a couple of counts.
News is saying that it was a rogue wave that hit the boat broadside and knocked it down so fast the crew could not even call a mayday. So no rocks involved at this point as far as we know.
Also, as yawuntz correctly said, lifejackets were not worn (although they were on board). Apparently this particular boat had an enclosed cockpit/passenger area, and the recommendation is not to wear a lifejacket in such boats, as there is a risk of getting caught inside and unable to get out due to the buoyancy of the lifejacket.
So the speed of the sinking, combined with no lifejackets and the temperature of the water likely led to the deaths. It does not take long in cold water before you cannot swim or tread water.
Just because you have not heard of it does not make it obscure…
Just seeing the bow, it looks like a really small fishing type boat but there is a photo of the boat before sinking here: 5 dead, 1 missing after whale watching vessel sinks off Tofino, B.C. | CBC News
Apparently people were standing on the left side of the upper deck when the wave hit them from right. So it actually was top heavy, just not dangerously so unless a rogue wave hit from the opposite side, and unfortunately one did.
That doesn’t indicate much, other than where the most buoyancy in the vessel is. Agree not a whale though.
A rogue wave shouldn’t be capable of this. I think that the stability of this vessel will be looked at very closely. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find there was something not right.
As to deaths, my experience with this sort of casualty (and I have a bit) is that you will lose a certain percentage of people in any medium-small passenger vessel capsize. Swimming out from under a capsized vessel is very difficult and a certain percentage will always get confused in the chaos and try to swim the wrong way or whatever. There’s often someone in the head (toilet). There’s often someone who will swim into the head or some other dead end thinking it is the door out. That sort of thing.