Case Study
Incident Investigation
A fishing trip off the Florida Keys took a turn when two men encountered rough weather and engine trouble on their 19-ft center console boat. With overcast skies and 5-foot waves, they worked to repair the stalled engine, unaware of the danger approaching.
Meanwhile, a solo boater aboard a 54-ft sport cruiser was making his way back to shore as conditions worsened. He suddenly heard a loud noise as the cruiser had collided with the smaller vessel. The sport cruiser’s operator reported that the sound of the collision was the first indication of the other boat’s presence. He never saw it.
Following the incident, state authorities filed criminal charges against the sport cruiser’s operator for failing to maintain a proper lookout.
Contact scenario based on damage matching
Assigned Task:
Was there any reason the operator of the sport cruiser might not have been able to see the center console, as he claimed? S-E-A was retained by the operator’s defense team to evaluate the visibility from the helm of the large sport cruiser.
To perform the analysis, S-E-A took the following steps:
- Document review of Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) reports, photographs and depositions.
- Vessel Inspection – took measurements and photographs of both the involved vessels.
- FARO 3-D laser scan of vessels’ hulls, an exemplar center console was scanned to document the pre-incident dimensions and shape.
Animation of sea state at time of incident
Animation of visibility from helm of sport cruiser
- Created 3D visual models and compared possible contact scenarios to damaged areas on boats.
- Instrumented sport cruiser (using a Vessel Black Box which consists of accelerometers and GPS antennas) and measured vessel trim and motions.
- Recorded video from operator’s height of eye.
- Created a simulation to demonstrate the visibility of the small boat from the helm of the striking boat.
Evidence was evaluated resulting in the following findings:
- S-E-A was able to provide an accident reconstruction based on scientific principles, including:
- matching damage locations on each vessel, showing the center console was riding in a wave trough at the time of collision
- instrumenting the sport cruiser to document angle of trim and vessel motions in a substantially similar sea state
- providing visibility analysis from the operator’s height of eye position