As waistlines expand, vessel capacity shrinks...

YachtForums · Dec 12, 2011

From the Palm Beach Post...

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/as-waistlines-expand-boat-capacity-sinks-2026316.html

When a paddlewheel dinner boat called the Crystal Queen sailed its maiden voyage in waters off the coast of Atlantic City in the early 1990s, the Coast Guard certified 153 passengers and crew members as a safe load.

Today, that same boat — which was renamed Island Time and will begin cruising the waters off Key Largo on New Year’s Eve — is permitted to carry only 134 people.

The 78-footer didn’t shrink. Americans got bigger around the waistline.

“The U.S. Coast Guard feels the U.S. people have gotten fatter over time,” said Capt. Ed Sparrow, owner of a Miami-based charter yacht called Holiday of Magic. Its legal capacity has shrunk from 49 to 35 passengers.

Since 1960, the Coast Guard has calculated vessels’ capacity using an assumed average weight per person of 160 pounds. That was seven years before McDonald’s rolled out the Big Mac.

On Dec. 1 of this year, an amended federal rule took effect that recalibrated the average weight of a passenger at 185, a 25-pound jump.

Generally speaking, most cruise ships are not affected by the new rule because they are registered outside the United States. Your recreational boat also gets a pass.

But for commercial vessels sailing under the U.S. flag, the new standard applies.

Many folks — big-bellied cruisers included — think the new standard is long overdue.

“Oh, God, yeah. I’m 251 with sandals,” David Kushner of Chenango Bridge, N.Y., said as he boarded the Key Largo Princess glass-bottom boat last week for a sunset cruise with his wife of 43 years.

TWIN TRAGEDIES

The revamped weight standard applies to all passengers, regardless of gender, and was based on a 2004 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found the average male, 20-75 years of age, weighs in at 191 pounds, up from 166 pounds in 1960. For women, the tally went from 140 to 164.

The call for change stemmed from two boating tragedies. In March 2004, a pontoon water taxi called Lady D overturned in Baltimore Harbor with 25 aboard. Five people died; four were severely injured.

In October 2005, a monachal called Ethan Allen sunk in 70 feet of water on Lake George in New York while carrying 49 passengers. Twenty elderly people died.

In both cases, the vessels were carrying the proper number of passengers but an excess amount of weight. Those accidents shined a spotlight on the antiquated assumed weight, which was a puny 140 pounds for boats that cruised solely on “protected waters” such as rivers and lakes.

“I guess they thought you were skinnier if you sailed on the rivers than the oceans,” said Jimmy Hendricks, owner of the Key Largo Princess. His vessel takes passengers offshore to the edge of the Gulf Stream to see coral reefs.

William Peters, a civilian in the Coast Guard’s office of design and engineering standards, said of the Baltimore Harbor: “It highlighted that the average weight of people on that vessel far exceeded the assumed weight.”

The amended rule holds ocean-going vessels and those that sail on protected waters to the same standard.

During the public comment stage of the proposed rule change, Peters said there were 108 comments. Most agreed with the 185-pound figure, although one boat operator said the nationality of the passengers should be taken into account.

“One of the comments said: ‘Gee, I have Asians on my boat,’” Peters said. “He had a U.S.-flag operation in the Far East, and he said Asians weigh less than you domestic Americans. He wanted to know why he should be constrained by how fat all the Americans got when he carried mostly Filipinos.”

WHY NOT 200?

Others recommended that the average weight be set even higher, considering subsequent CDC reports have shown Americans packing on additional pounds.

“One person commented that we should just raise the number to 200 pounds and be done with it,” Peters said.

The regulatory analysis estimated that about 6,100 passenger vessels would be subject to the amended rule, although only about 1,000 to 1,300 would be forced to lower their capacity.

“Smaller boats actually are affected more than the bigger boats,” Peters said.

Passenger weight is just one of several factors considered by the Coast Guard to determine a boat’s stability.

Many commercial boats, after 9/11, voluntarily dropped their capacity to 149 so they would not be subject to new maritime security regulations applied to boats with passenger capacities of 150 or more, Peters said.

The Key Largo Princess’ capacity of 140 passengers is not changing, Hendricks said.

The glass-bottom boat actually could carry more passengers under Coast Guard standards, he said. “We all want to be safe, and I tend to worry about my insurance companies and passenger liability more than the Coast Guard.”

PAINFUL CUTS

But the new maximum capacity for Sparrow’s Holiday of Magic yacht hurts, he says.

“If I have a dinner cruise with a corporate event and I charge $100 per person for food and bar, I’ve lost $1,400,” he said.

Rob Mitchell, who recently bought the Crystal Queen paddlewheel dinner boat — a replica of a 19th century vessel — said he was content with the lowered capacity of 134.

“As long as I could be certified for 125, the number you need to get your liquor license, I’m good with it,” he said. “And if I get 100 people each trip, I’ll be happy.

“We’re not a cattle boat.”
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Marmot · Dec 12, 2011

For more information:

https://homeport.uscg.mil/mycg/port...jsp&pageTypeId=13489&contentType=EDITORIAL&BV

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As waistlines expand, vessel capacity shrinks...

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