Weight of the victims in the boat accident tragedy

On a calm, sunny day a charter boat carrying 48 senior citizens on a tour of Lake George, NY was swamped and sunk. No one could figure out what happened. Was it the wake of another boat? Was it because most of the passengers were sitting on one side? It couldn't be because there was just one crew member (the captain) instead of the required two!

Maybe...it was the fact that we weigh more than we did when the regulations were set for how many people could get on a charter boat.

Just days before the boat overturned, the Coast Guard began rethinking its per-passenger weight limits to take into account Americans' expanding waistlines. The current standard, set 25 years ago, assumes a 140-pound average for each man, woman and child.

At the time it flipped over Sunday, the 38-foot Ethan Allen was just under its capacity of 50 people — a figure that was arrived at by using a New York standard that assumes a 150-pound average, authorities said.
...
The Coast Guard awarded a contract a few weeks ago to a research firm to determine how increasing the average weight per passenger would affect vessels around the country, spokeswoman Angela McArdle said.

McArdle said the Coast Guard knew the weight requirement has been outdated for some time, but it did not move on the issue until the NTSB warned about the problem after five people were killed when a water taxi sank in Baltimore.

Asked why the Coast Guard did not move more quickly, McArdle said: "It has such wide-ranging implications. You need to address the economic impact on the industry, looking at the scope. It's not something where we can just say, `Now passenger ferries must carry 20 fewer people."'

Read the whole article here.

Today, my daughter and I are joining Weight Watchers--first time for her, fourth for me...this time, though, I'm going until I get to maintenance.