12
votes
Court records show duck boat in Missouri disaster was designed by entrepreneur with no engineering training
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- Authors
- Matt Pearce
- Published
- Jul 24 2018
- Word count
- 1176 words
As an engineer this sort of thing makes my blood boil:
I’m wondering how predictable was this tragedy?
What was involved in the inspection? Was it inspected as a car, boat, amphibious vehicle?
These particular duck boats have been running for 30 some years with thousands of passengers a year without any real incident. Branson is a pretty popular vacation destination for Missourians and those duck boats are a common attraction there.
As a non-engineer who means no disrespect to your profession, I think non-engineers can produce perfectly viable products. On the other hand, only engineers can optimize it down to the least material necessary to meet spec. I can build you a bridge, anyone can. It'll be made of a solid chunk of 50ft thick stainless steel. The common saying is to call this "over-engineered" but it's really the complete opposite of that.
This guy's main problem isn't that he isn't an engineer, it's that he's an idiot and there seems like there wasn't the proper regulatory framework in place to tell him that he's an idiot.
You seem to only be considering functional requirements, not non-functional ones.
I give you a river to bridge. You slap your gigantic hunk of steel on it, drive a truck across as a test, and call it good.
A month later a rainstorm slightly erodes one or both of the banks. Now your roadway is tilted at an angle. Maybe it's safe to drive on with that tilt, maybe it's not. A car might make it across just fine, but a tractor-trailer with a crosswind might not.
Is your road surface also stainless steel, or do you want to put asphalt on top of it for better traction? Have fun driving on that bridge in freezing rain if you plan to leave the road surface bare. If you pave over it, how do you plan to bond the asphalt to the stainless steel?
Using a bridge as an example is also easy, because it's mostly static (modulo the examples I gave of erosion affecting the foundation, and weather affecting the road surface). In this case we're talking about amphibious vehicles. It needs to both be safe when driving on public roads (the crash in Seattle was caused by a snapped axle and led to the duck boat crashing into oncoming traffic, killing 4) as well as seaworthy even in adverse weather conditions (the most recent sinking in Missouri).
Engineers do far more than just take a design a layperson might think of and optimize it for cost.
I have a habit of drinking too much, going on the internet, and posting things I later come to regret.
This is one such post. On some other site I'd probably just delete my post. Here on the other hand, I'd like to apologize for my behavior.
I sorta started off wanting to riff on the idea that the term "over-engineered" means the opposite of what people normally think it does, but I ended up making myself sound like an idiot.
Thanks for your well thought-out reply to my drunken ramblings. It's time I make a serious effort to stop doing this.
I've done stupid shit while drinking too, both online and off. I appreciate and accept your apology.
Hahahaha. I've lost track of the number of times my intoxicated ramblings came back to bite me on the backside.
At least we can all breathe a sigh of relief that this intrepid entrepeneur, this Hank Rearden made flesh, did not have to be held back by the red tape of statist government regulators.
I think we can all agree the free market solved this issue.
How is this allowed? I thought vehicles that contain humans are typically subject to all sorts of safety checks and regulations etc? Where I live, I've looked into trying to register a customized electric motorcycle, and basically been told there's no way they can issue it registration without appropriate safety checks, which are prohibitively expensive for a single vehicle. I've also heard from friends having issues with uncertified car trailers, where they'd be pulled over and fined huge amounts for pulling trailers that don't meet safety regulations.
It strikes me as absurd that a company can be selling such a death trap in the first place with no oversight. Engineer or not, I'm surprised this was allowed to be sold and operated.
Well... something to consider is the fact that they are inspected, but I don't know how rigorously. This particular duck boat operation had been operating for something like 30 years with thousands of passengers a year without an issue. The duck boat right ahead of the one that capsized made it across without any trouble just moments before... it was a freak thing really. Still tragic though.
Compared to other amusement rides - duck boats have a pretty good record overall I think...
As a non-native Missourian myself I have a bunch of mixed emotions about the reaction from some people about this accident - specifically MO legislation choices based on what is or isn't requiring of additional regulation for safety - but those wouldn't really be well presented in this particular topic. :)