I spoke to Jerry owner of the Magician last night about this and the case # 3183776 you spoke of is a no sail-835 for missing his COI 5 year renewal dead line. All top side yearly inspections have a 90 day grace period from the date posted on the COI. He forgot it was the 5 year renewal, missed the inspection date by 2 weeks and the Coast Guard is mandated to No Sail any vessel past the due date.

If it was up to me I wouldn't even post what he said next but he asked me to do so and before i do I want you to know that your nothing but a trouble maker(for a lack of a better word) and your most likely from another boat in the fleet trying to hurt the competition, specifically a boat/Captain who has a much higher reputation for quality than yours.

The incident your talking about did in-fact happen and Jerry made it known publicly twice. I asked Jerry to e mailed me the details this morning because I didn't want to get the story wrong. As I read it, and type this I find this story inspiring.

The Magician was inbound from Angles Gate to the main channel while a container ship was out bound from the main channel to pier 400 and then on to Long Beach via the inside harbor. At 680 yards from the container ship the Magician crossed in-front of it to enter the inbound lane of the traffic scheme. The pilot commanding the container ship tried to hail the Magician on Bridge to Bridge channel 13 VHF to let him know his vessels intentions as most of the time they veer southwest to Angels Gate and then outbound to sea. The Magician was monitoring channel 14 Vessel traffic(VTS) and channel 16 vessel hailing.( Jerry said it was his mistake and forgot to switch over to 13 when he entered the harbor) There was no risk of collision at 680 yards however the container ship pilot felt it necessary to report it to the C.G. because the inland rules of communication were not met.

Heres where the sorry gets interesting....LTCMDR Ray Lechner, head of Coast Guard investigations contacted Jerry to let him know that he needed to follow up on a reported incident. The two met and discussed what had happened reviewed track lines on the Magician's GPS plotter and agreed their was no risk of collision. Conclusion of the incident was that the Magician should have been monitoring VHF 13 and the the container ship should have hailed the Magician on VHF 16 when communications were not established on 13. End of incident no report filed. KEEP READING!

Ray Lechner told Jerry that he had alliterative motives for meeting with him as this could have been handled by a phone call. He told Jerry that C.G. was very concerned about recent diving fatalities and the Admiral has ordered an investigation of Inspected dive boats to find out what part they have played in these fatalities. As a result of a series of meetings coordinated between Jerry and Ray Lechner to involve DAN, PADI, Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber, Attorneys and L.A.C. Coroner the Diver Safety Symposium was held last Summer and presentations were given from all of the above. Invited guests were all the dive boats and all the dive shops in California(invitations were coordinated by reef seeker's Ken Kurtis) The Symposium drew over 150 guests. (the next one in 2009 will include the diving public) During the course of these meetings Jerry re formed the California Dive Boat Association (in which this whole thread started from) and it's main goal .... professionalism and diving safety among it's members/ vessels. End of story and hopefully end of this boat bashing thread!!!

I'm way tired of typing and spell checking! Tom

• Re: California Dive Boat Association Randy 23:16:11 12/29/08 (0)