Monday, October 2, 2023
A BOATING accident in Grand Bahama injured 14 people yesterday, including three toddlers.
Police said shortly before 1pm yesterday, a 36ft boat with 21 people left Fortune Bay Drive for Grand Cay, Abaco, when the vessel hit a sand bank a half mile north of the Freeport dock.
Several passengers were reportedly ejected from the vessel and later retrieved from the water. The passengers, all Bahamians, were helped by another vessel and returned to Grand Bahama.
The injured include seven women, four men, two girl toddlers and a male toddler. They were taken to the Rand Memorial Hospital and were treated for minor injuries.
Police are questioning the boat captain, a 53-year-old man of Grand Cay, Abaco.
The incident comes three weeks after a boat capsized off Rose Island with 28 people on board. After taking in excessive water, three people in that incident were taken to the hospital for medical attention.
Comments
Sickened says...
We are going to be up in arms when you need to get a licence in order to operate a boat. We just have too many inexperienced/dumb people driving boats.
Granted we are required to have a licence to operate a car but we still have tens of thousands of dumb people driving cars.
Posted 2 October 2023, 9:42 a.m. Suggest removal
FreeportFreddy says...
21 people on a boat??? That's just stupid!
Posted 2 October 2023, 9:46 a.m. Suggest removal
Porcupine says...
What is the legal passenger capacity of said boat? You didn't say.
Posted 2 October 2023, 9:51 a.m. Suggest removal
FreeportFreddy says...
I don't know the legal capacity however 21 is way too many and common sense would dictate that it was overloaded.
Posted 2 October 2023, 10:07 a.m. Suggest removal
ScubaSteve says...
What does your question have anything to do with the Captain of the boat running aground on a sand bar?
Posted 2 October 2023, 12:09 p.m. Suggest removal
FreeportFreddy says...
It's a general comment on the judgement of the people involved. If you look at pictures/video it was not a sand bank...it hit the shore at high speed. The captain was not paying attention and one reason may have been overloading or distraction.
Posted 2 October 2023, 3:10 p.m. Suggest removal
The_Oracle says...
A lot of questions surrounding this accident:
Why is the boat up and over the unfinished sea wall in the canal, north side of the waterway with engines damaged?
Videos on the internet show this being the case. That's not a sand bank.
Second: is this vessel being run as a commercial taxi/ferry boat?
If so, Capt would need an A license for inter island transport.
Boat would need commercial vessel registration and the appropriate liability insurance, life jackets, safety gear, annual inspection.
Other news report claim it was to or from Sweetings Cay, south side G.B.
Too many questions.
Posted 2 October 2023, 2:21 p.m. Suggest removal
FreeportFreddy says...
Video showed an ambulance...I don't believe that Sweetings has an ambulance. It could be the Grand Lucayan Waterway as that would be the route from Fortune Bay to Grand Cay. Maybe they crashed entering the Waterway??
Posted 2 October 2023, 3:12 p.m. Suggest removal
The_Oracle says...
Latest story is the boat was on its way to grand Cay and ran onto the wall avoiding a Crawfish diver swimming with a cooler in the water. Not sure where the sand bank comes into play.
Plenty crawfish in the canal walls so people always swimming in there, always debris floating through on the current as well, etc.
Posted 2 October 2023, 5:23 p.m. Suggest removal
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