Are You Safe on a Liveaboard?

The British idiom "Worse things happen at sea" means if things are bad ashore, they could be much worse at sea. It's a sentiment worth bearing in mind before your liveaboard leaves the dock. What may be a simple problem at home that you know to handle has a new meaning when you're on a 90-foot vessel hours from land.

If you're on a liveaboard and a crisis arises, you can only hope that the craft was constructed with safety in mind. But, if you're properly briefed - or do your homework - you'll know whether it has been outfitted properly, whether the crew will attend to business in an emergency, and what you need to do, from finding your life jacket to knowing where to muster.

In the last few years, a surprising number of liveaboards have caught fire or sunk for a variety of reasons. The tragic Conception, where there was only one viable exit, no fire alarm sounded, and no one was on watch, alerted the liveaboard world to its safety needs. We recently asked our readers for comments about the briefings and safety of liveaboards they've been aboard, and most said that they were given a full safety briefing and felt the crew would be doing their jobs. While there are problematic vessels, some are exemplary.

Mike Ball's Spoilsport is one of those. Terry Cummins, aboard the Spoilsport in January, says they provided a thorough briefing before they left port (it's required by the local dive regulations and the Australian Marine Safety Authority), which outlined all fire procedures and plenty of other items like "man overboard procedures." He was shown the escape paths, which were also displayed on a poster in his cabin. They tested his cabin fire alarm during the safety briefing and gave thorough instructions about what to do in an emergency. He was shown the lifejackets in his cabin and those on the upper deck/muster stations, where the life rafts displayed their last inspection date. If he were to charge batteries in his cabin, he had to remain there. The crew and CCTV monitored battery charging stations on the open deck and lounge area. And a crew member stood watch throughout the night.

One might expect such thoroughness in developed countries like Australia, but remember just how the system failed when the Conception burned to the hull in California.

Some Crews are Derelict

One might be especially wary in Indo-Pacific countries, where safety may not always be a concern. One reader said that on a trip onboard the Somboon 3 (aka South Siam 3), operated by South Siam Divers, north of Phuket, Thailand, his briefing "did not mention fire escapes, equipment, or procedures and no mention of life jackets or lithium batteries. I had a berth on the bottom deck, which has a main exit (aft) and an emergency exit (forward) through the crew's quarters, and it was blocked. The dive deck is chaotic, with equipment everywhere and no equipment boxes."

Barbara J. Wise (Tucson, AZ), who dived in the Maldives aboard the MY Ocean Sapphire said, "There was no safety briefing or fire drill. Most cabins were in the ship's hold, where the escape hatch was sealed shut. None of the portholes was large enough to escape through, making the only escape route via the one set of stairs to the main deck. At the top of the steps is the kitchen, so had there been a fire either below or in the kitchen, everyone below would have died trapped. When asked about it, the dive crew would shrug their shoulders and say, 'This is not our boat, so we have no say.' My cabin had no functioning alarm, and we were not instructed how to use the lifejackets." She never saw life rafts. "Battery charging was ongoing in the main salon without anyone monitoring them. Torch charging was done in cabins. At the start of the trip, there was a limited briefing that may have talked about lithium battery charging, but it was in Italian. In short, this is not a safe boat."

Heidi King of West Palm Beach, FL, is an experienced traveler, but she was disappointed when joining the Aurora to dive around Komodo Island, Indonesia, last July. "There was no safety briefing, no procedures, no fire safety exit information, no first aid kit, no location of supplemental O2, nothing." They were merely told, "If anything happens, the crew will take care of it."

Afterward, "Many of us notified the company of the safety deficiencies. None of us received any reply.

However, a popular Indonesia liveaboard, Dewi Nusantara, got high marks. Gregory White (Cobden, IL) wrote, "I felt their safety practices were probably the best of any boat we've ever been on. We had life vests in our room and on the upper deck at the muster station. We were given a safety briefing before the boat left anchor, shown the safety exit outside our room, and had a fire drill during the trip. There were a fire extinguisher and smoke detector in each room and fire extinguishers in public areas. Battery charging was to be done only in certain designated public areas and in our rooms only if we were there and not asleep. One day I forgot and left my computer plugged in when I left for a dive and came back to find someone had unplugged it."

Michael Hofman and Janet Moyer (San Francisco, CA) wrote of Dewi Nusantara, "The cruise director went through the standard safety protocols, including blowing the muster horn, the life jacket process, the process of abandoning ship, exiting the lower level and other precautions. We brought along and turned on our own carbon monoxide/smoke alarm, just for the heck of it."

The Aggressor Fleet:

North American divers widely use the Aggressor fleet, and their safety is critical to our subscribers. Their boats are all owned by individuals, not Aggressor Adventures, which is a marketing company. While they do indeed have safety standards for the vessels they market, each boat is operated differently, and the safety can vary. The Aggressor staff can cajole all it can, but it may not be able to convince an operator to bring a boat up to snuff. They couldn't get the owner of the Socorro Aggressor to get his boat up to a reasonable standard, so in December they stopped marketing it and forced him to drop the Aggressor name. A month before that, one of our readers, Jeff Moore (Sahuarita, AZ), reported that "there was no safety briefing on emergency exits, protocols in case of fire, or muster area. Worse, several fire alarms, smoke detectors, and fire extinguishers were said to be not in working order."

Generally, Aggressor boats measure up. Donna Lattin (Seattle, WA) says, "I have been on many liveaboards worldwide. I would say out of all the companies out there, Aggressor has all this [safety] covered. The staff is informative, and the briefing is pleasant and easy to understand." Rob Linscheer (Colorado Springs, CO) wrote, "I was on two liveaboards last year, the Belize Aggressor III twice and the Palau Aggressor once. Both had the same safety procedures. Getting up at night, I always found the night watch up and alert."

Gina Razete (Fort Myers, FL) went on the newly renovated Cayman Aggressor and said, "Amazing safety precautions. Everything I looked for was there, including alarms, a sprinkler system, and a watchman at night."

But not all Aggressors are, in fact, the same. Susan Leh (Santa Rosa, CA) went on the Philippines Aggressor in March 2023 to the remote Tubbataha Reef, 80 miles off the coast of Palawan, and said, "The cruise director was new and did the worst boat safety briefing ever. I have been on eight Aggressors, and I know the drill. We always have to go to our rooms, get our life preservers, and go to the muster station. This time, the director flew through the slides, never telling us where the muster stations were, except at the front and rear of the boat. We never did a drill, nor did she tell us where the crew would be located in case of a night-time emergency." Susan wisely did her own investigation to find two routes to get from below decks in an emergency. When she got home, she wrote to Aggressor Adventures and was fobbed off with a standard reply from a Vice-President . . . . "I do not feel that they particularly care," she told us.

Yet, Safe Liveaboards Abound

Robert A. Munno (NYC), who rode the Nautilus Belle Amie to the remote Islas Revillagigedo, reported that every aspect of safety was in place, from smoke detectors to up-to-date life rafts.

"I was on the Black Pearl in Palau last July," writes Albert Ross (Littleton, CO), and "The crew gave us a full briefing: Life jackets, fire extinguisher locations, emergency procedures, fire drills, where to gather, life rafts, emergency beacons, and emergency exits. They gathered passports to keep them safe in case of an emergency evacuation. We all received dry bags (ship logo) to stick to-go stuff. All in all, we felt quite safe."

Jack Kirk (Denver, CO) wrote, "Mike Gergen and the crew of the Truk Odyssey did an amazing job explaining every safety feature and process, including battery charging, lifeboats, the carbon monoxide detectors, smoke alarms, emergency lighting in our cabins, the fire-proof intercom system, all exits and egress points, the 24-hour patrol who safeguarded us at night, and watched our battery charging to make sure all was safe. Companionways and exits were always maintained wide open. We were shown our life vests and life rafts and how to access them in emergencies."

Conclusions:

If you don't get a full safety briefing when you board your liveaboard, ask plenty of questions and do your homework. If you don't get all the answers, raise your concerns with other passengers. If they share your views, then together become polite pests. It's for the safety of everyone.