NEWS
By Mary Gail Hare and Mary Gail Hare,Staff Writer | July 2, 1993
Aboard Piney Run Lake's pontoon, children swept the clouds away, sang of sunny days and took the waterway to Sesame Street.Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Bert and Ernie dolls all came along for the ride Wednesday. Oscar and any other grouches stayed home.Karen Jenne, park assistant and pontoon captain for the day, passed out life jackets to the little cruisers. Many clutched a mother's hand and looked a little nervous as they embarked on their maiden voyages."Look, we are making waves," said Jeffrey Duerr, 5 1/2 , as the pontoon pulled away from the dock.
NEWS
By Tom Pelton and Tom Pelton,SUN STAFF | March 14, 2004
Federal investigators are still puzzling over what caused a water taxi to capsize in Baltimore's harbor, killing as many as five people. And so is Jeffrey L. Harper, manager of the company that built the boat. Harper, who runs the tiny Susquehanna Santee Boatworks in rural Lancaster County, Pa., said he is "devastated" about the deaths. He said he believes his firm's pontoon boats are safe and stable when used on the calm, protected waters for which they're designed, but he adds that even the best-made boat can be dangerous if taken out under the wrong conditions.
NEWS
By Tom Pelton and Tom Pelton,SUN STAFF | March 20, 2004
In the wake of the fatal capsizing of a Seaport Taxi in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, the Coast Guard is reviewing the testing process it uses to certify the safety of pontoon boats. "The Coast Guard, as a whole, in light of this tragedy, is re-evaluating the whole process we use for determining pontoon boat stability," said Lt. Joe DuFresne, chief of small passenger vessel inspections for the Coast Guard's Baltimore area office. The Lady D, which flipped during a sudden blast of wind off Fort McHenry during a storm March 6, killing five people, never had a stability test, according to Coast Guard records.
NEWS
By Tom Pelton and Tom Pelton,SUN STAFF | March 9, 2004
Federal investigators looking into Saturday's fatal capsizing of a water taxi on Baltimore's Inner Harbor are examining the design of the two-hulled Lady D and may study the safety record of similar pontoon boats nationally. Some other water taxi services - including those in Delaware, Chicago, Boston Harbor, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Vancouver, Canada - use larger, conventional-hulled boats, which some captains consider more stable in high winds and choppy waters than smaller boats with raised platforms atop pairs of torpedo-shaped floats.
NEWS
By Tom Pelton and Tom Pelton,SUN STAFF | April 29, 2004
Lt. Joe DuFresne, Less than two months after a fatal water shuttle accident in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, the U.S. Coast Guard has ordered the owner of Seaport Taxis to cut maximum passenger loads by about 25 percent to make the boats safer. In addition, the Guard has directed the Living Classrooms Foundation to modify two of its pontoon boats by moving the floats farther apart to improve stability, said Lt. Joe DuFresne, chief of small passenger boat inspections for the Baltimore regional office.
NEWS
By Michael Dresser and Michael Dresser,michael.dresser@baltsun.com | March 6, 2009
Five years after the water taxi Lady D flipped over in Baltimore Harbor, killing five passengers, two federal agencies remain divided over the cause of the tragedy and the lessons to be learned from it. The National Transportation Safety Board, after its investigation, made recommendations to the Coast Guard on steps to be taken to prevent future small-craft accidents. But the Coast Guard has staked out a contrary position on several points as it struggles to rewrite its safety rules in the aftermath of a calamity that shook the maritime agency to its core.