IN THE MATTER OF:   X DOCKET NO. DCA-99-MM-021
X
INVOLVING THE AMPHIBIOUS  X
PASSENGER VESSEL SAFETY FORUM X VOLUME I OF II
 
 
 

PLACE: Memphis Marriott
  2625 Thousand Oaks Boulevard
Memphis, Tennessee
 

DATE: December 8, 1999
 
 
 

The above-entitled matter came on for hearing, pursuant
to notice, at 8:10 a.m.
 
 
 

APPEARANCES:

MR. JOHN HAMMERSCHMIDT
National Transportation Safety Board

MS. MARJORIE MURTAGH
Director, Office of Marine Safety
National Transportation Safety Board

MS. ELAINE WEINSTEIN
Deputy Director of Operations, OSRA
National Transportation Safety Board

MR. DONALD TYRRELL
Chief, Major Investigations Division
Office of Marine Safety
National Transportation Safety Board

NTSB PANEL:

MR. ROBERT HENRY
Chief, Technical Services Division
Office of Marine Safety

DR. PAULA SIND-PRUNIER
Senior Human Performance and Survival Factors
Specialist
Office of Marine Safety

MR. ASH CHATTERJEE
Senior Naval Architect
Office of Marine Safety

MR. TONY MURRAY
Marine Accident Investigator
Office of Marine Safety
 

SPEAKERS:

MR. BOB MCDOWELL
President
Branson's Ride the Ducks

MR. JOHN GILJAM
President
Cool Amphibious Manufacturing International

MR. FRANK SERAFINE
President
Land and Sea Tours

MR. ANDY WILSON
President
Boston Ducks

MR. JACK RINGELBERG
Naval Architect, JMS
 

LIST OF ATTENDEES:

CAPT. JOHN GRENIER
Chief Office of Investigation and Analysis, G-MOA

CAPT. BRIAN BASEL
Chief Office of Compliance, G-MOC

MR. ROBERT MARKLE
Chief Lifesaving and Fire Safety Standards Division
G-MSE-4

CAPT. JEFFERY LANTZ
Commanding Officer
Marine Safety Center
 

CAPT. GLEN ANDERSON
Commanding Officer
MSO [Marine Safety Office] Port Arthur

LCDR JAMES WHITEHEAD
Chief of Inspections
MSO [Marine Safety Office] Boston

LCDR DAVID DOLLOFF
Assistant Chief of Licensing
National Maritime Center

LCDR ERIC CHRISTENSEN
MSO [Marine Safety Office] Chicago

LCDR GENELLE VACHON
Office of Maritime and International Law
G-LMI

CWO ROBERT SORRELL
MSO [Marine Safety Office] Milwaukee
LT. DEAN FIRING
Vessel Compliance Division
G-MOC-2

 BMC (SW) (DV) DEVIN HUNNICUTT
 Naval Operational Medicine Institute
 WATER SURVIVAL INSTRUCTOR
 Pensacola, Florida

 I N D E X
Speaker        Page
Introduction, by Mr. Hammerschmidt      5
Introduction of NTSB Executive Panel,
by Ms. Murtagh        10
Introduction of NTSB Technical Panel/Topics
by Mr. Tyrrell        13
Forum Overview, by Mr. Murray
Amphibian Conversion to Passenger Vessel:
DUKW Conversion to Passenger Vessels,
by Mr. McDowell      16
British Alvis Stalwart Conversion
by Mr. Serafine      21
LARC Conversion to Passenger Vessels,
by Mr. Giljam       33
DUKW Tour Excursion Company
by Mr. Wilson       41
Passenger Egress, Survival/Lifesaving Equipment
Questions to: Capt. Anderson, Mr. Markle,
CWO Sorrell, and BMC Hunnicutt  126
Vessel Design and Stability, by Mr. Ringelberg 208
Initial Certification and Plan Review
Stability Standards Accident History  237
Questions to:  Capt. Lantz,
Capt. Anderson and LCDR Christensen

 P R O C E E D I N G S
MR. HAMMERSCHMIDT:  Good morning, everyone, ladies
and gentlemen.  Welcome to the Amphibious Passenger Vessel
Safety Forum, sponsored by the National Transportation Safety
Board.
I am John Hammerschmidt, a member of the National
Transportation Safety Board.
Before we get into the details of how this forum
will proceed, allow me first to tell you a little about the
Safety Board and how it works.
The Safety Board was established by statute in 1966
by Public Law 89-670, as an agency within the Department of
Transportation.  Later, in 1974, the Safety Board was removed
from the Department of Transportation, to become a completely
independent Agency.
The Board's mission is to determine the probable
cause or causes of selected transportation accidents and, "to
promote transportation safety by conducting independent
accident investigations and by formulating safety improvement
recommendations."  In plain language, the Board exists for
the sole purpose to make transportation safer.
The Safety Board fulfills its mission in all
transportation modes:  aviation, railroad, highway, pipeline,
marine and commercial space launch.
In the Marine Mode, the Safety Board generally
investigates accidents that result in one of the following
criteria:  Loss of six or more lives; total loss of a self-
propelled vessel of over 100 gross tons; property damage in
excess of $500,000; and, serious threat to life, property, or
the environment by hazardous materials.
Since its inception, the Safety Board has
investigated more than 200 major marine accidents, and has
issued nearly 2,000 marine safety recommendations.  These
recommendations have been addressed to various maritime
organizations including:  vessel operating companies, marine
associations, classification societies, the International
Maritime Organization, the U. S. Coast Guard, and other
governmental agencies.
With an overall acceptance rate of 73 percent, our
marine safety recommendations have resulted in numerous
safety accomplishments through the years.  Including,
improved fire safety standards for passenger ships, improved
training requirements for seafarers, and improved lifesaving
equipment requirements for all vessels.
Among our duties, in addition to accident
investigation, the Safety Board also has the authority to
conduct special studies of important transportation safety
issues.  This forum, is an effort on the part of the Safety
Board, to provide an opportunity to bring together owners,
operators, passengers, and regulators of amphibious vessels
to share our knowledge of the safety issues appropriate to
these unique land and water craft.
The Board first became concerned about the
potential for safety problems related to amphibious passenger
vessels during our investigation of the sinking of the Miss
Majestic on May 1, 1999 in Lake Hamilton, near Hot Springs,
Arkansas.
The Miss Majestic, which was a converted World War
II amphibious DUKW, D-U-K-W, had 20 passengers and one
operator aboard at the time of its sinking.  Tragically, 13
of those passengers did not survive.
Although the underlying cause of this accident is
still under investigation by the Board, the Board determined
a need to discuss and probe safety issues related to
maintaining, operating, inspecting and regulating these
vessels, and to the escape and survival design features.
And speaking of design features, the Safety Board
is also interested in generating discussion on safety design
features found to be acceptable in one areas of the United
States, but when that vessel is later relocated to another
part of the country, are discovered to be lacking essential
safety design features in the new region.
Since the sinking of the Miss Majestic, we have
often heard it said that when people really get to know these
amphibians, they acquire a sense of "duck science."
Ladies and gentlemen, let us share the knowledge of
this science with all those here today through the means of
this forum.  All of us present, the U. S. Coast Guard, the
state safe boating law administrators, the passenger vessel
organizations, the vessel owners, the operators and the
public wish to prevent similar accidents from occurring.
To allow the forum to proceed in an orderly and
non-prejudicial manner, there are some basic rules that must
be followed by participants.
This forum is not being held to determine the
rights or liabilities of private parties.  And efforts
directed at determining such rights or liabilities will not
be permitted.  I will not tolerate any participant turning
this fact-finding effort into an attempt to plead a case, nor
will I allow the introduction of any extraneous or
prejudicial information that is not directly related to the
issues at hand.
Let me re-emphasize that a Safety Board public
forum is a fact-gathering exercise.  There will be no attempt
to analyze the facts or announce a conclusion at the close of
this forum.
I will be responsible for the conduct of the forum.
 I will make all needed determinations on the appropriateness
of questions or presentations, and all such rulings will be
final.
The record of this forum, including a transcript of
the forum and all exhibits subsequently entered into the
record, will become part of the public docket in the Safety
Board's Washington, D.C. office.  Anyone desiring to purchase
a transcript, should contact the court reporter because the
Safety Board does not provide copies of the transcript.
We are very pleased at the fine participation in
this forum and welcome the representatives of the amphibious
passenger vessel industry, the maritime industry, state
officials and the U. S. Coast Guard personnel.
We certainly look forward to an enlightening
discussion of your various concerns in relation to safe
operations of amphibious passenger vessels.  We likewise
welcome the public.
I can assure you all, that your input on the safety
needs of the design, inspection and operation of amphibians
will be gratefully received.  We encourage your candid
discussion during the next two days.  The ultimate success of
the forum will be up to you.
And now that I've finished reading the prepared
remarks.  Let me just re-emphasize in another way, that we're
all here to basically learn as much as we can about these
amphibious passenger vessels.  It should be a mutually
reinforcing type process for the next day and a half, and
that's our whole goal, is to learn as much as we can, so that
we can make improvements where needed.
We will now proceed with the forum.  At this time,
I would like to turn the microphone over to Ms. Marjorie
Murtagh, who is the Director of the Safety Board's Office of
Marine Safety, who also has some opening remarks.
MS. MURTAGH:  Thank you, Member Hammerschmidt.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
I, as the Director of the Office of Marine Safety,
I too would like to offer you a warm welcome.
The Office of Marine Safety is pleased to have this
opportunity to learn more about amphibious passenger vessel
safety.  We use this type of event periodically to allow all
appropriate persons, private, government organizations, to
share safety information on the importance to marine
transportation safety.  In addition, the public is invited to
observe our proceedings.
Today and tomorrow, our discussions will concern
the safety of amphibious passenger vessels.  Most of you are
aware of the tragic sinking of the Miss Majestic that
occurred earlier this year.  However, I'd like to emphasize,
that while this accident may come up during this forum, our
focus is much more general.  We'll cover many topics
regarding the safety of amphibious passenger vessels.
We look forward to a very positive result from this
forum, which would not be possible without the full
cooperation of the industry, the regulators, and the private
individuals who are here today.
We all have a responsibility to ensure the safety
of over a million people who ride and enjoy amphibious
passenger vessels every year.  And this forum, promises to be
a very positive step toward that goal.
Now, I'd like to introduce the NTSB personnel,
who'll be participating in this forum.
Seated here at the Executive Panel, to the left of
Member Hammerschmidt, is Mr. Donald Tyrrell, he's the Chief
of the Major Investigations Division, of our Office of Marine
Safety.  To my right, is Ms. Elaine Weinstein.  She's the
Deputy Director of Operations for the Office of Safety
Recommendations and Accomplishments.
Seated at the NTSB technical panel, in the center
is Mr. Robert Henry, Chief of the Technical Service Division.
 To his right, is Mr. Ash Chatterjee.  He's a Senior Naval
Architect, with the Office of Marine Safety.  And to his
left, is Mr. Tony Murray.  He's the Marine Accident
Investigator, who's in charge of this investigation.
At this time, I'd like to turn the microphone over
to Mr. Tyrrell, who will go over the procedures we'll follow
in conducting the forum.
MR. TYRRELL:  Good morning.  I would like to take a
few minutes to explain the procedures that we will follow in
conducting the forum.
First, Mr. Anthony Murray from our Office of Marine
Safety will provide a short presentation, concerning the
various different types of amphibious vessels currently in
use and an overview of the forum topics and mission.
After Mr. Murray presents his presentation, we'll
ask members of the witness panel to come forward and take a
seat.  I see that the first panel is already seated.
The witness panel members will be asked questions
by the NTSB technical panel to my right.
After questioning by the technical panel is
completed, questioning will pass here to the head table.
After which, we will answer any questions that may come from
the audience.  There are index cards in the back of the room.
 We would ask that if you have a question that you would like
posed to the panel, that you write the question down, and we
will collect the index cards, and hand them to Mr. Henry on
the technical panel, who will ask the questions as time
permits.  We may not be able to answer all of the questions.
 We are on a very tight schedule.  We've got a lot of area to
cover, and we hope to move it along, so that we cover all of
those areas.
The questions are intended to stimulate discussion
to assist the Safety Board in obtaining more complete
understanding of the safe operation of amphibious passenger
vessels.
In the course of the forum, we will periodically
take breaks, and give people a chance to get up and stretch
their legs.  So at this time, without further adieu, I will
ask Mr. Murray from the Office of Marine Safety to come
forward and to make his presentation.
MR. MURRAY:  Ladies and gentlemen, members and also
all the vessel -- amphibious vessel operators.
The contents of this white binder is for -- we have
ten items for reference material.  First of all, is the color
photographs, copy of the color photographs of the display
exhibits.
We also have a directory of the Amphibious
Passenger Vessel Owners and Operators.  We have a copy of the
DUKW Safety Alert, you can find on the Coast Guard's web
page.  46 Code of Federal Regulations, Part 185, Subchapter
T, some of the emergency proceedings -- procedures; U. S.
Coast Guard T-boat Inspection Book; the New York State
Navigation Law and Inspection Report; the State of Utah had
also produced some laws for the Amphibious Passenger Vessel
Safety industry; we have the Passenger Vessel Association
Risk Management Manual; the National Association of State
Boating Law, Administrator's Model Act; and also, a copy -- a
paper copy of this presentation.
Mainly, we're going to focus this forum on the
DUKW.  First of all, we're going to have the five topics of
the forum, will be amphibious -- the amphibious conversions
to passenger vessels.  The second topic will be passenger
egress and survival.  Followed by the maintenance -- the
vessel design and stability.  Followed by the maintenance and
inspections, and finally, the last topic will be on
operational safety.
The forum will mainly concentrate on the amphibious
DUKW, but the Safety Board is also interested in learning
more about the LARC's and the British Alvis Stalwarts.
The operating companies, there's about 20 of the
DUKW operating companies throughout the country.  And also
four each of the British Alvis Stalwarts and the LARC
companies.
The next slide shows the map of the United States,
and the states and cities where you can find the amphibious
passenger operators.
The passenger vessels themselves, we figure there's
about 225 of the DUKW's that are operating.  And as far as
the LARC's, there's probably about 20, and the British Alvis
Stalwart's, there's about 4 in operation.
This is a picture of the DUKW during World War II.
 They were basically used to transport the supplies and
military personnel from the ships anchored offshore to the
beach and further inland.
And today, this is the -- a typical DUKW converted
in the passenger vessel configuration.  Although, the canopy,
this is only one of many different designs that are used by
the industry.
And this is a diagram of a DUKW utilizing only
four-wheel drive of the original six-wheel drive available in
the DUKW capability.
This is the LARC.  It's the lighter amphibious
resupply cargo.  And this is the LARC-15, that the Army had
used in 1992.  This was a JLOTS exercise.  It stands for
Joint Logistics Over The Shore, and this is a much larger
LARC.  You can see -- here we have a picture of a Hum-V right
at the bow of the LARC.  These LARC's actually carry six
times the cargo capacity of DUKW.
And this is the LARC-5.  This is a much smaller
capacity, five-ton capacity LARC.  And these were used
extensively throughout Vietnam.
This is the British Military version of the
amphibian vessel, the Alvis Stalwart.  And this is the
converted Alvis Stalwart.  A lot of these amphibious
passenger vessels now today, are being replaced by the use of
a helicopter, and the air cushioned landing craft.
The forum mission is to share the knowledge and the
safe -- the knowledge and safety with the owners, the
operators, the maintainers, the inspectors, and the
regulators of these amphibious passenger vessels.  And also
finally to prevent another accident such as the Miss Majestic
from happening.
This concludes my presentation.  Thank you.
MR. TYRRELL:  Thank you, Mr. Murray.  At this time,
I would like to introduce our first witness panel.
Seated to my left and the gentleman closest to me,
is Mr. Bob McDowell, President of Branson's Ride the Ducks.
To his left, is Mr. Frank Serafine, President of Land and Sea
Tours.  To his left, is Mr. John Giljam, President of Cool
Amphibious Manufacturing International.  And to his left, is
Mr. Andy Wilson, President of Boston Ducks.
This panel will discuss the conversion of military
craft to commercial passenger vessel service.  I believe that
Mr. McDowell has a brief presentation.
MR. MCDOWELL:  As Don pointed out, my name's Bob
McDowell.  I'm with Branson's Ride the Ducks in Branson,
Missouri.  We were incorporated in 1971, and my affiliation
with the company began in 1977.
Since that time, we have transported approximately
three million, and it's quite a bit in excess of that at this
point, and have successfully done so over the course of the
years that we've been there.
Anthony Murray with the National Transportation
Safety Board has asked me to do a brief history of the DUKW,
just to kind of bring everybody up to the same level
regarding its history with the war effort, and some of the
development and concepts, such as that.
Let's define, for sake of discussion, amphibious
vehicles which were built by General Motors Corporation for
the United States Army.  The primary purpose was to deliver
priority cargo directly to troops fighting inland off the
invasion beaches.  And they also delivered troops from ship
to shore.
The years they were manufactured was 1942 to 1945.
 They built in excess of 21 -- 20,000.  The overall length is
31 foot.  The width is approximately 8 foot, two inches, and
the total weight is a little over 14,800 pounds, at a cost of
just over $10,000 per unit, back in the early '40s.
The DUKW acronym stands for -- D is the year that
the DUKW was designed, so 1942 relates to D, so C would be
1941, and so on and so forth.  The U stands for utility cab,
which in this case, also stands for amphibian.  The K for
front-wheel drive, and the W for rear-wheel drive, two axles.
The engine, drive-train and chassis were derived
from an already proven GMC two and a half ton six-wheel drive
Model CCKW truck.  The stripped truck body was wrapped with a
steel built hull, designed by the renown naval architects,
Sparkmans and Stevens.  And as a matter of fact, Sparkmans
and Stevens, Ron Stevens received the medal of honor, which
is the highest honor bestowed upon a civilian during war time
for his efforts in developing the DUKW hull.
A gear box was added to the truck drive train, and
propeller, which provided propulsion on the water.
The payload capacity on land was just over 5,000
pounds.  On water, it's known to carry in excess of 40
equipped soldiers, and the speed was governed to 50 mile an
hour on land, and just over 6 mile an hour on water.
World War II was the primary role and
responsibility of the DUKW was utilized in landing in Sicily,
Normandy, and throughout the Pacific.
Between June 6th, 1944 and May 8th, 1945, over
three million tons of supplies and equipment were carried by
Dutch, the French and Belgian ports, so they're quite a
critical component during the victory of World War II.
Since World War II, DUKW's used in Europe were
given to NATO, which utilized them on into the '70s, and they
were again used in the Korean conflict.  They continue to be
used in civilian rescue, private collections, and public tour
operations.
It is estimated that fewer than a thousand exist
today in North America.
I'd like to use the remainder of my time to give a
little bit of a brief video presentation that will help
everybody understand what we do in Branson, and both in the
manufacturing process and a brief overview of our sightseeing
tour.
This is a visual on how the DUKW's were utilized.
They carried -- a lot of their use was not quite as glamorous
in supplying some of the supplies, such as ordinance, fuel,
water, on into the shores after the initial landings were
made.  There's a critical component as some of the
beachheads, of course, had quite a bit of activity on them.
They were able to not offload on the beach, and take those
commodities on into shore, which saved a tremendous amount of
time and money.
Today, we like many of the re-builders, have a
cache of DUKWs that we start off with.  Being built back in
1945, there's quite a bit of repair, modification,
development needs to be done to get them up into the
condition that they need to be.
We start by completely stripping the hull,
completely the suspension and everything, and expose all of
the metallurgy from front to back, top to bottom, we pull the
top off, we put it up on a rack, rotate the hull for optimal
weld angles.  We have a specialized painting system for the
internal rib painting, and we also utilize the rotation of
the rack to get those areas where you can't see with the rib
enclosures.
We take this business seriously.  We don't cut any
corners.  The hull is a hundred percent imposed to the
inspection process, and the Coast Guard frequently comes
through during various phases of the equipment.
And our second station there, after we get off of
the primary hull rack is where we do the floor grid, canopy
development and so forth.
We have developed our own braking systems.  All-
wheel drive disc brake systems, automatic transmissions,
power steering, and so forth, to ensure the continuity and
longevity of the components, the availability of them.  Part
of our criteria has been able to utilize componentry is
readily accessible and easy to maintain.
There's very few of the original components
incorporated in the DUKWs as we build them today.  None of
the existing drive train, suspension, tires, wheels, axle
housings, any of that is of the original DUKW configuration.
 One hundred percent rewire front to back, with many safety
innovations that we'll be sharing with you over the course of
the discussion of this hearing, hopefully help make this
industry a little bit safer.
That's our manufacturing site, and this
presentation was done a year or so ago, so it's a little bit
outdated, but it'll give you a little bit of an overview of
our sightseeing presentation as well.
If you can turn it up just a little bit now,
please.
Thank you.  That concludes our presentation, and
we'll do our part to help make the industry as safe as we
can.  If there are any questions, we'll be glad to fill them
at a later time.  Thank you.
MR. TYRRELL:  Thank you very much, Mr. McDowell.
We'll now have a short presentation by Mr. Frank Serafine,
President of British -- excuse me, President of Land and Sea
Tours, who will talk about the British Alvis Stalwart
conversion.
MR. SERAFINE:  Thank you.  Good morning.  My name
is Frank Serafine, Land and Sea Tours of Dreammaker's
Specialties in Orlando, Florida.
I'll give you a little idea about my company and
our experience to give you some idea of why we're here today
talking about the Stalwarts and conversions to amphibious
tour machines.
Our company specializes in restoring, repairing,
modifying and converting the Alvis Stalwarts.
We started tinkering with these Stalwarts as a
sideline business to another business I had about four years
ago.  As time passed, and I learned more about the tour
industry, I recognized a definite need for a shop that
specialized in doing only amphibious machines.  More to the
point, Alvis Stalwart amphibious machines.
It became obvious to us, that these were optimum
machines, but they are very unique, and required one's full
devoted attention to be done properly.
I was convinced the Alvis Stalwart could be built
to be a vehicle of choice, so 18 years -- 18 months ago, I
decided to separate that business from my other business.
And we set up a second facility to focus exclusively on the
Alvis Stalwart.
We now have a 14,000 square foot facility devoted
to only Alvis Stalwart vehicle conversion.  Twelve employees
work on as many as seven Stalwarts at any given time.  At
this time, we're subletting less than five percent of the
work on our vehicles, 95 percent of the conversion work is
done and is supervised in our shop by our employee for
quality control reasons.
We've built and completed 13 Alvis Stalwart
conversions, of which 10 were required and were issued Coast
Guard certificate of inspections.
Right now, in our shop, we have seven vehicles in
production in different stages of completion.
I'm going to discuss three different subjects.  The
first will be about the original Alvis Stalwart, a little
history about it, and how they're built.  We'll talk about
our conversions after that, and then about stability.
Lastly, I was asked to talk a little bit about some of the
trials and tribulations that are associated with converting
these machines.  We'll talk a little bit about that.
The Alvis Stalwart was built in England during the
1960s.  The Stalwart was built for NATO as an ammo and supply
hauler.  The Stalwart was built very durable and strong, as
it was intended to be a permanent part of the armed forces.
The Stalwart comes in two versions.  The early
units were Mark 1's, the latter units were Mark 2's.  Both
versions show the same hull, and most of their parts.  The
differences are very minor.
The stock Stalwart is 20 feet in length, and 8 and
a half feet in width.  Some of the Stalwarts also came with
6,000 pound cranes.  The Stalwart has fully independent six-
wheel drive suspension, and four-wheel steering in a stock
configuration.  It is also six-wheel drive.
Oh, this is the crane unit.  The Stalwart hull is
built super heavy duty, using quarter inch plate and eighth
inch steel.  Here's a cut cross-section that you can see.
That photo's in there sideways, but that'll give you an idea
of how it's built.
Nearly everything below the waterline is quarter
inch plate, and all the cab and the freeboard are eighth-inch
steel.
The Stalwart also has windshields and side glass,
and that glass is half-inch tempered, and is relatively
indestructible.
The Stalwart was originally built with lightweight,
but very strong aluminum side folding gates, so very easy
loading and unloading.  A double seal keeps the vehicle
watertight.
The original Stalwart has an eight by fourteen
cargo area, capable of carrying 10,000 pounds.  The drive
system is all contained under the cargo belly of the machine.
 The original Stalwart -- that's wrong.  The original
Stalwart is powered by 396 cubic inch Rolls Royce straight A
gasoline engine, rated at 194 horsepower.  It uses a five-
speed transmission, and is shifted in forward and reverse
through a transfer case.
Dual twelve-inch double water jets power the
Stalwart in the water.  The Stalwart is capable of six knots
with the stocked-out units.  We also have options that can
increase the speed.
The jet inlet is protected by a steel grating.
This one inch steel grating protects the jet, so that no
large debris can circulate through the jet.  This eliminates
potential propeller or housing damage.
Clam shells that block the opposing jets accomplish
the in-water steering.  The clam shells are controlled with
dual steering arms with tele-flex cables.  The driver sits in
the center of the Stalwart to drive, and the controls are off
to his left.
Reversing is accomplished by fully closing each
clam shell reversing the thrust.
Shafts driven through angle drives off the
transmission, using the PTO drive the stocked Stalwart double
jets.  We also use hydraulic motors to drive these dual jets
to replace the stock PTO setup.  Either setup allows the jets
and the wheels to be run independently or together.
During in-water operations, the wheels are
disengaged, as there is no advantage to run the wheels in the
water.  We have found it to be a myth that the wheels will
actually increase in water speed of the vessel, at least with
the Stalwarts.  The wheels are only engaged at entry and
exiting the water.
The on-road drive system is quite unique.  It's a
very simple and safe method of getting the power through the
hull without any large voids or seals to rely on, but it
keeps the vessel -- and keeps the water vessel watertight,
but it is complicated, because it uses multiple gearboxes and
angle drives to get the power to the ground.
The power goes through a five-speed transmission.
This transmission houses only gears for forward and reverse,
and forward and reverse is accomplished through the transfer
case.  Excuse me.
The power goes through the transfer case and exits
out both sides of the transfer case.  The transfer case
directly drives center bevel boxes on each side of the
vehicle.  Shafts inside the hull go from the center boxes to
the front and rear boxes.
The bevel box is basically an angle drive that
bolts directly to the hull.  These boxes are sealed to the
hull.  They are a snug fit to the hull, with just a couple of
a thousandths clearance.  These beveled boxes send the power
outboard to planetary wheel drives by turning forks and
knuckles that are inside of a challis and bell assembly.
Hull penetrations and driveshaft boots are a
serious concern here.  So I've taken a couple of shots to try
to show you how we get the power out on the Stalwarts.  The
Stalwart has a nice system for this.
Heavy duty driveshafts are enclosed in what is
called the challis.  The challis is very hardy and provides
the water protection to the hull.  The challis goes into the
bevel box, and is a slip fit with one-thousandths clearance.
 The challis is sealed with a cork seal.  The boot you see in
this picture is really nothing more than a dust boot.
The final drive is a planetary drive that is
mounted on suspension arms on each wheel.
I'll talk a little bit about our restorations and
what we do to the vehicles to convert them into tour
machines.
We restore the Stalwarts in a few different sizes,
different seating capacities and drive-train choices.
Vessels can be built from 28 to 49 passengers.
Hulls can be stretched almost any length, because of the hull
design that remains stable at almost any length.
The most popular size is our 28 foot unit.  This
unit will seat and certify with ease for 47 passengers, but
with the wheel-base of just 15 feet, it is still maneuverable
on typically tight historic streets and the downtown areas.
Presently, we have contracts to build Stalwarts
with original drive systems, replacing the stock Rolls Royce
engines with big block Chevy's.  We've also contracts to
build Stalwarts with diesel engines and hydrostatic drive
motors.  The diesel and hydraulic setup is a little more
money up front, but long-term, you see the money back in
relief maintenance, headaches and nightmares.  This is
definitely the system we are advising, but there's still a
lot of budget-conscious people that want to limit their up-
front investment.
Regardless of which drive-train choice, they all
start the same.  We've come to the conclusion that anything
short of stripping the hull to the bone and starting from
scratch is a recipe for future maintenance and reliability of
nightmares.  The entire engine, drive-train and all drive-
train components are removed.
The original wiring and gauges are a mess and
rarely work, and even if they work today, they will probably
fail tomorrow.  Every wire was white also, so it kind of made
it a troubleshooting nightmare.
We throw the original harness and gauges away and
totally rewire the machine, with a certified Coast Guard
reviewed and approved 12-volt harness, using all certified
boat cable.  A new dash is fabricated and all new gauges with
audible and trouble lights are installed.
Audible and trouble warning lights are also
connected to all bilge pumps, for bilge alarm and also a high
water sensor, to show that the bilge pumps may not be keeping
up.
All circuits are fuse protected.  All switches and
fuses are UL listed and intrinsically safe.  All the gauges
and switches are waterproofed marine pieces.
After stripping, all hulls are sandblasted, cleaned
inside and out.  The original side gates are removed, along
with any bad, weak or questionable steel.  Ninety percent of
our machines are stretched for added capacity.  This hull
stretch is professionally engineered and has been Coast Guard
reviewed and approved.
Our machines are inspected at least three times
during construction.  An initial hull exam is done after
stripping.  Another hull exam is done when the hull is
finished, mostly to inspect welds and to verify that all weak
or questionable metal was removed.   All our welders are
certified AWS procedures, with Coast Guard supervision.
Although welder's supervision or certification is not
required under the regs for T-type vessels, we chose to
certify our welders in tests that exceed any type or position
they may encounter.
The third inspection is done at time of completion.
 This is the final build inspection.  All vehicles leave our
shop with temporary certificate of inspections, requiring
only new to zone inspections whenever they arrive at their
new port of call.
The hull is painted and primed with military spec
primer and urethane topcoats for durability and resistance.
We have had multiple Stalwarts running in salt water and have
found that if properly prepped, painted and maintained, we've
had no major corrosion problems even in the salt water.
Another photo of another painted one.
If the stock drive-train is used, then it's totally
rebuilt, including the engine and all drives.  All bolt
tongues are new or rebuilt marine units were necessary.  Most
are Delco Marine and are intrinsically safe.  If the diesel
and hydrostatic drive is chosen, a brand new Cummins engine
with 100,000 mile warranty, and a brand new hydrostatic pump
and drive system with a one-year warranty are used.
As an added bonus with the hydrostatic system, the
only hull penetration you have for drive to the wheels, is
simply hydraulic feed lines out to the wheel motors.  This
limits our entire hull penetrations even more.
You may notice that we've excluded any photos of
our diesel or hydraulic unit.  We're presently preparing and
filing patent papers on that system, so we're not quite ready
to show it in a public forum yet.
Three UL listed 1,200 gallon per hour bilge pumps
are installed.  All three bilge pumps have automatic and
manual capabilities, and are switched independently.  All
three are connected to bilge on alarms, with both audible and
light warnings.
The three bilge pumps are wired to two different
batteries.  Two pumps on one, and one pump on the other.
Besides the bilge on alarm, there's also a high water alarm
to alert us in the event that the bilge pumps are not keeping
up with any potential incoming water.
Automatic fire suppression is handled by a Fire boy
FE241 system, mounted in the engine compartment.  Damper
doors that close the air-in lids in case of discharge,
contain a fire agent to contain potential flare-ups.
We'll talk a little bit about stability and the
stability of the Stalwart.
The Stalwart has excellent stability in the water
even fully loaded.  The main reason the stability is so good,
is because all the drive-train is in the belly of the boat,
acting as ballast.
This photo shows one of our extended 49 passenger
Stalwarts loaded with barrels full of water for the Coast
Guard stability test.  We are carrying 8,000 pounds of weight
in the stability test, the equivalent for 50 people.  There's
also additional weight to compensate for missing seats and
other items that had to be removed for the test.
You can barely see, there's a black line on the
side of the hull, that is our maximum list mark.
To determine the maximum list location, you must
measure three-quarters along the freeboard, the length of the
vessel.  In our case on this vessel, that would be seven foot
forward of the stern.
Fully loaded, the Stalwart has 30 inches of
freeboard at this location.  Total allowable list is 25
percent of the available freeboard from the waterline at this
location.  In this case, it's about seven to seven and a half
inches from the waterline.  The top of the black tape is our
maximum list mark.
Calculations are done to determine how many barrels
must be moved to one side to cause the required amount of
heeling moment for the test.  I'm not going to bore you with
the calculations, but in this photo, you can see the barrels
are moved.
In this photo, the vessel is at full list with the
equivalent weight of more than 50 people on the starboard
side.  You can see the waterline is just to the bottom of the
tape, leaving us with about three-quarters of an inch to
spare.
The test shown here was carried out in fresh water.
 If the test were performed in salt water, the additional
buoyancy of the salt water where the fresh water allowance
would increase the amount of freeboard even more.  The Super
Stollie would most likely certify for an additional five
persons on board if we wanted to push it, or if we could cram
them in.
Here's another angle of the vessel at full list.
This is one of six different stability tests that we've done
on six different vessel variations.  These vessels were
different sizes using different seating arrangements.  We've
passed stability tests with our Stalwarts ranging from 28 to
49 passengers, whether the vehicle's stock length carrying 28
passengers are extended to carry 49, the stability test
results are almost exactly the same.
In a closing statement, I was asked for some of the
-- about what were some of the more difficult things about
amphibious conversion and getting them into operation.
I would say the simple hardest task is finding a
build spec that pleases both the Coast Guard and the DOT.
Our units are classified by the Coast Guard as T-boats and
built to those specs, but unfortunately, there are just a few
things with T-boat regs that do not normally accept some of
the things on amphibians.  The dry exhaust system on an
amphibian, for example, would be the biggest hurdle.
The other thing, in trying to build a vessel, is to
please each zone.  It seems that different zones have
different operating procedures, policies and requirements.
One zone may approve operation with plastic side curtains,
another refused.  One zone may allow a passenger to come up
and steer the vessel during operation, another refuse.  One
zone will approve the vessel plans for operation, and another
one refuses.  That's a big one.
I think a set of amphibious regulations and
guidelines would go a long ways towards helping the
manufacturers, the operators and the Coast Guard for future
amphibious operations.
I thank you for your time.
MR. TYRRELL:  Thank you very much, Mr. Serafine.
We'll now hear a brief presentation by Mr. Giljam, President
of Cool Amphibious Manufacturing International.
MR. GILJAM:  My name is John Giljam.  My wife,
Julie and I own Cool Stuff Tours, which is located in Hilton
Head, South Carolina.  We make a lot of noise this morning.
We own and operate in that location, a 49-passenger
converted LARC which we did three years ago.  The picture
behind me, you can see that is a 45-foot LARC, and it started
out stock as a 35-foot military version.  We cut that vehicle
in half, stretched it ten feet, changed all of the drive-
train to hydrostatic drive, and that is what is operated
there.
We also, as I said, own CAMI, now that is the
company we use for the building and manufacturing of
amphibious vessels, and I'll tell you a little bit more about
that in a minute.
I've been involved in the specialty vehicle
manufacturing business for my entire life.  My father started
and founded a welding and fabrication shop in 1968 in
Rochester, New York.  I literally grew up in the business of
design and engineering, and that is what I have drawn on for
all that we do today.
There's been a wide variety of things we've built
in that shop.  We've designed and built automated material
handling systems, highway trucks, oil field rigging and
equipment trucks, and specially fire apparatus, along with
the amphibious vessels that we do today.
It was this experience we used in 1997, when we
designed and built the "Cool Diversion" which is pictured
behind me.
This is the first 49-passenger with a crew for
certified amphibian that we're aware of ever built.  This is
completely hydrostatic drive, for which we had applied for a
patent and have a patent pending on our hydraulic drive
system.
We're the first company to do such a conversion,
and by replacing the entire drive train, that is where we get
our reliability that we have today.
Another thing that we do, is in the conversions for
other customers, we've also been selected by the United
States Army in converting some of their units to hydrostatic
drive, and we have been sole source provider for the United
States Army for this hydraulic drive system.
As far as the LARC's go, there were 968 units
originally built.  As best records can indicate, over 600 of
them were sank, just as merely a means of disposal [when the
U.S. departed Vietnam in the '70s].  Stock LARC is 35 feet in
its length, 9 foot 7" in its width.
A stock 35 foot has a passenger capacity of 32
persons.  And the stretched version, as I've shown you here,
is 49.
The original drive-train was comprised of many,
many moving parts.  On the engine, there were three
transmissions directly bolted to it.  Then there was a
driveshaft from that to another ascetic gearboxes with a high
load range and road marine selection.
Marine reduction drive.  In the road, the power
came from this gearbox to a complex differential set, which
in turn split to two sides of the vessel.  Then another set
of gear differentials for the front and back wheels.  The
driveshaft went to each wheel to four individual four corner
gearboxes, which in turn drove four planetaries, one on each
wheel.
That's a lot of gears and moving parts to maintain.
 When we built it, we took a look at this system, and decided
that it would prove very unreliable without an extreme amount
of maintenance, and that was the driving force between the
development of the hydrostatic drive system that we designed
in '97.
That system eliminates 100 percent of all original
parts.  The only thing that was used in the conversion was
the aluminum hull itself.  All of the wiring completely was
replaced, the engine, the drive-train of every part and piece
was replaced in this vessel, and has no drive-train
whatsoever from the original military form.
We also instead of the large balloon cushioned
tires that were used on it, we now use radial tires on the
vessel, which meet the DOT requirements for being on the
highway.
These improvements added dramatically to the
performance of the vessels.  Road speeds, we do up to 47
miles an hour, with that conversion.  That is up from the
mid-20's with a stock.  Our marine performance was also
improved about 50 percent from the original 8 knots to 13
knots.
The size of the vehicle, does require oversized
permits for DOT transportation.  For most locations, that is
not a problem.  For us, it was only a matter of a piece of
paper and a $50 annual permit, and that is what we run on in
South Carolina, is a $50 over wide permit that is merely an
annual permit with no restrictions.
The maneuverability of the original LARC, the
turning radius was quite great.  If I remember right, it was
in the neighborhood of 65 feet turning radius, something of
that nature.  With the hydraulic conversion, we've taken that
turning radius down to 17 foot.
Now, that turning radius is shorter than both the
Stalwart and we tested this, it's shorter than my pickup
truck, as far as maneuverability.
Our design has been proven to be extremely
reliable.  We have two seasons on our unit that you see here.
 We've got over 1,400 hours, and we have not lost a single
day due to a mechanical failure.
I've got a new piece of equipment that I want to
introduce you to.  It's a little bit difficult, I see, to
show you, but we'll work on it anyway.
This is a completely brand new design amphibian
from the ground up.  There is nothing old about this
whatsoever.  This is 100 percent manufactured from the
scratch.
We took a look at all the amphibians in the market,
reviewed all the strengths and weaknesses, and used that data
in the development of the Hyrda-Terra?.  We also included
all the lessons learned from all of the previous experience
of all of the operators.
Our desire was to build the safest vehicle
possible.  And the safety features included for the highway
use alone are as we have a fully padded dash, power steering,
radial tires, driver side air bag for the captain, laminated
safety plate windshield, four-wheel disc brakes with anti-
lock, and raised operator cockpit for increased visibility.
In marine road, this is where the vehicle really
stands out.  Our following safety systems are standard.  This
vessel has a dual drive system.  The wheels and the propeller
system can consume 100 percent of the power applied to it.
This is essential for beaching operations, and also provides
emergency propulsion system, if anything were to happen,
debris to be entangled into the propeller drive or anything
of that.
This unit here is shown with a propeller drive, a
water jet drive is also available, it makes no difference.
The steering system is provided, which backs up the
marine steering, because we can turn the front steering
wheel.  So as long as there's any motion of the vehicle, if
we were to lose the rear steering on the out-drive unit, we
do have steering control of the vessel.
The seating design that you see, is wide open.  It
meets all of the Coast Guard requirements.  It includes the
addition of an escape door for emergency egress in the center
of the vehicle.
I wish it was a little bit brighter.  Well, anyway.
 It's only a little bit brighter.  I'm sorry.
As you can see up in the top, that is a seating
configuration.  Seats are two-by-two, side-by-side.  This
seats 49 people with the open center in the one-side that
allows for an escape egress door, out of the one side of the
vessel.  Normal boarding takes place on the right side of the
vessel.
All of the life preservers are installed directly
below each individual seat.  This gives very fast and rapid
access to the life preservers.  Thank you.  That is also the
same design as we have on the "Cool Diversion."  Each
person's individual life jacket is underneath their
respective seat, and each one of those that we set up on the
"Cool Diversion" is an adult life jacket.  What we do is, we
put all adult life jackets underneath all of the seats.
Before we enter the water, we specifically will hand out
child's preservers, that way we know each child is properly
taken care of.
The vessel has a built-in pre-engineered fire
extinguisher system.  Has the largest freeboard of any
amphibian.  It has a 46-inch freeboard.
Dual bilge pumps operated in the dash, with dual
bilge warning alarm and system.  The biggest safety feature
of this vessel, is that it is unsinkable.  If you pull the
plugs out of this vessel, it still will not sink.
Below the decks in individual compartments, we have
a foam flotation system, which is mill spec foam underneath a
large portion of the vessel.  This was engineered in such
that even with the vessel fully flooded, the vessel will
still float level, and above the water.
If in the event of a collision with a submerged
object or a foreign object in the water, if you were to
pierce one of the individual compartments, that is still not
a problem, as all of the individual foam cells are still
there.  They are still in a fully enclosed aluminum
compartment.
The hull structure itself is 100 percent aluminum.
 The power is diesel engine, and that's what I can tell you
about the Hyrda-Terra?.  It's a brand new design.  It's very
fast, very agile, and we think it's the best thing that we
can build.  We already have units on order, and they're
currently stepping up production to meet more demand for this
product.  Thank you.
MR. TYRRELL:  Thank you, Mr. Giljam.  We'll now
hear a presentation from Mr. Andy Wilson, President of Boston
Ducks.
MR. WILSON:  Good morning.  My name is Andy Wilson.
 I am the founder of Boston Duck Tours.  I came up with the -
- and I was asked to give an overview of an operating
company, and not particularly go over conversion of the
vessels.
I came up with the idea in 1992 for Boston Duck
Tours, and it became very apparent quickly that I had to
obtain 29 separate federal, state and local permits.
When I -- as I approached these government
regulators, they were not familiar with this idea, and quite
honesty, they thought I was crazy.  And they immediately
zoned in on my weak point, which was the fact that I didn't
have any previous experience in this industry.  Even though I
had -- was an accomplished businessman and an experienced
boater.
So what I decided to do was tour the three primary
areas that existed at the time, that had operations which was
Scotts and Dales, that have been in business for about 50
years, and done that very safely for a long time.  Branson,
Missouri and Hot Springs, Arkansas, it became very clear to
me, after touring that, that Ride the Ducks in Branson,
Missouri had done the best job in restoring this equipment
and executing their tour program.
After some discussions with Bob McDowell, we
entered into a licensing agreement, and primarily to take
advantage of his 20 years plus experience.  And it wasn't
until that point and time that these various government
regulators took me seriously.
And ultimately, we opened in 1994, with $1.6
million worth of capitalization and debt.  We've been in
business for five years.  In 1999, we carried 450,000 people
safely through the streets of Boston, and employ 85 people,
and have really become a main stay of the Boston tourism
community.
I'm very pleased that there's this forum.  Since
we've taken off and been so successful, it went from
basically a handful of operators as Tony pointed out earlier
to over 30 with probably another 60 or more people looking to
get into this industry.  And part of my concern and why I'm
glad there is this forum, is that basically I was held to a
very high standard by the community, by the regulatory
community that had jurisdiction over me.  And I was pleased
that I affiliated myself with 20 years experience, because
this is a very difficult -- it's an unusual industry, and
unusual -- it's not a bus business, it's not a boat business,
and it has its own unique criteria to operate this safely.
And so as a result, I think of the scrutiny that we
went under, and also the experience that was brought to the
table, is one of the reasons that we've had so much success.
But it has expanded the interest so greatly, that I
don't think other people are being held to the same standard
as well as regulations, because it is an emerging industry.
Have lagged behind, which is always the case in an emerging
industry, so I'm very pleased that we're having this forum,
and hopefully we'll have a safer industry as a result of it.
 Thank you.
MR. TYRRELL:  Thank you very much, sir.  At this
time, I'm going to turn over the microphone to the NTSB
Technical Panel, who will ask questions of our witness panel.
 Mr. Ash Chatterjee, will lead off questioning.
MR. CHATTEJEE:  Good morning.  I'm going to ask
questions starting from my left, with Mr. Bob McDowell, and
then move on from that position.
We enjoyed all of your presentations very much, and
in the process of your presentations, you've answered many of
my stock questions.  So I'm going to start with -- I'll
follow-up to some of the things you mentioned in your
presentation.
Mr. McDowell, you'd mentioned that most of the DUKW
is completely rebuilt.  I was wondering about the pumps.  Do
you replace the pumps, or do you retain the original pumps?
MR. MCDOWELL:  I believe the pump you're referring
to is the Higgins pump?
MR. CHATTEJEE:  Yes, sir.
MR. MCDOWELL:  Yes.  We have been fortunate to
aquire a large number of those, and we still utilize those
today.  It's not an item that's readily available out in the
market place.  There are replacements.  We feel that the
Higgins mechanical pump at this time is probably the best
solution to the de-watering that is available.  It pumps
approximately 265 gallons per minute, and I brought one with
me for anybody to review if they would like to at any
particular time.
MR. CHATTEJEE:  What was the capacity of the
Higgins pump?
MR. MCDOWELL:  Approximately 265 gallons a minute.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Okay.
MR. MCDOWELL:  That's what I find in some of the
documentation.  I brought some reference materials with me as
well to support that.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Do you foresee any reliability
problems, such as you see with the other parts, the reason
for which you had to change those parts?
MR. MCDOWELL:  Reliability problems as it relates
to the Higgins' pump?
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Yes, sir.
MR. MCDOWELL:  In our experience, we have not had
problems with this pump.  It is very reliable.  We do test
them along in our periodic maintenance program, as well as
the start of the year.  We have updated and improved the
system, the piping system, that is connected to the bilge
pump that exits to the outer portion of the DUKW, so it's one
continuous piece, and there's no opportunity for any failure
due to a hose clamp or hose material.  And we've designed it
as such, there's only one way to do the installation, so
there's no way a maintenance person could misinstall the
pump.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Are there any parts of the pump
that you have to change or renew periodically, because it's
an old pump, the original?
MR. MCDOWELL:  No, we do remanufacture or actually
new construction on -- some of our machinists makes the
primary shaft.  You do need to replace the bearings and
grease it periodically, but it's designed to run dry.  And we
don't -- it's there as a safety measure, and we don't
actually utilize it during the course of our operations.  It
runs continuously when the prop's engaged, but we just -- we
don't have the occasion to use it.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Thank you.  You mentioned that you
do most of your work in-house, and you have your own
fabrication shop.  Do you find it necessary, and if so, in
what areas, to hire naval architects or engineers or
professional engineers in-house or outside to do particular
aspects of your work?
MR. MCDOWELL:  Yes.  We have incorporated the
oversight of a gentleman named Matt Kawaski, he's a naval
architect out of New Orleans, to help us with some of our
studies and review.
Prior to the incident, of course, we've been well
on our way of development of some of the concepts to
continually improve the equipment, and we're doing a study to
test the ability to put, as this other gentleman has shared,
a closed-self foam system, and the new development of our
deck to keep -- so there won't be any opportunity for it to
ever sink.  And you can do that with foam or without foam.
We also use consultants that come in, and help us regarding
brakes, electrical systems, the Coast Guard's been very good
in providing oversight and helping in the interpretation of
the federal regs and so forth.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Thank you.  When you completely
renew the hull plating and most of the systems on the
existing DUKW, what parts, original parts, other than the
Higgins pump do you retain?  What parts do you find are worth
retaining?
MR. MCDOWELL:  We use the prop shaft.  We use the
V-strut.  The chassis.  We use the primary frame, it's a
tapered frame rail as you can see on that illustration.  We
use a similar form of the boot in tube system.  I believe
that's it, to the best of my recollection.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  So it's a very small part of the
original DUKW parts retained?
MR. MCDOWELL:  Yes.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Do you normally find it necessary
to re-plate the entire hull plating and the stiffners?
MR. MCDOWELL:  Due to the modifications we make on
the equipment, it's probably more cost-effective for us to go
to new construction in the very short future.
The history of the DUKW business, as it's evolved,
of course, being that the DUKWs were built in 1945 were that
the DUKWs were released out of military surface and surplus -
- as a surplus commodity, and were complete and intact and in
good shape.  Today the vessels that you acquire often times
have been stripped of their parts and have set outdoors and
the hull condition has degregated to the degree that there's
extensive repair work that needs to be done, just to bring it
back up to the original configuration.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  What's the thickness of the hull
plating when you renew a plate?
MR. MCDOWELL:  We replace the hull material to the
same specifications as was originally developed, except for
the ribbing.  We have upgraded the sides of the outboard
ribbing to the next gauge, it's 12 gauge.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Okay.  Just as general background,
where are your sources of where you purchase surplus DUKWs,
generally speaking.
MR. MCDOWELL:  Well, it's become a commodity like a
Model T would be.  There's collectors out there that have
acquired them over the years for one reason or another.
Several of them are leased to civil defense organizations,
and since have been sold off through auctions or private
ownerships, or whatever the case may be.  But to my
knowledge, there's no more being released out of surplus
sales and things of that nature.  It happens but quite rarely
at this point.
I think most of the DUKWs that are out there have
been acquired and have been restored by collectors or other
people looking to get in a similar type business.  The cost
is getting prohibitive for people to pick them up for just a
fun vehicle to play around with.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  You'd mentioned that there was
about a thousand DUKWs in existence in North America and
about 200 and some are used as passenger DUKWs.  So would you
say there's some potential to acquiring DUKWs originals?
MR. MCDOWELL:  That's just an estimation.  I've
heard that number thrown around several times by several
different people.  I really don't have anything to validate
that.  But I do know that there are several DUKWs held out
there by collectors that hope to refurbish them at some
point.  There's military collector's clubs and organizations,
that not only use DUKWs but other military vehicles that go
out and simulate re-enactments and so forth, and quite a few
of those are within those kind of organization groups.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  When you go to the Coast Guard to
obtain approval for converting a surplus armed military
amphibious DUKW to a passenger carrying vessel, would you
describe the sequence of steps that you have to go through.
MR. MCDOWELL:  We've a longstanding history with
the Coast Guard out of the St. Louis office.  They frequently
come to our property.  We review all design concepts and
developments with them.
We have, as you saw in my video presentation, the
facility that allows them to come through at any time to
review.  The equipment is fully exposed.  There's no hidden
areas on the DUKW as we rebuild them, so it's pretty easy for
them to see the quality of workmanship and our company's
culture and commitment to the quality and standards that we
need and that makes them comfortable.
When we have new concepts or ideas or developments
that we would like to bring up to them for review, we submit
them.  Sometimes we work through our naval architect.
Sometimes we submit them and do a review of the federal regs
with them, and work through the interpretation.  Since the
incident in Hot Springs, we have also asked for some of the
participation to be taken place out of Washington, D.C.
Dwayne Ray with their office has come to our
facility, and reviewed the manufacturing process of our
facility and our commitment to quality and safety, and has
given us a good review.
We ran a stability test while he was there, and he
made some observations and submitted, I guess, a briefing to
his office, regarding his visit.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Was it a simplified stability
test?  Can you tell us a little more about it?
MR. MCDOWELL:  Our class vessel, yes, that's what
is run.  The simplified stability test.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Was the test run because it hadn't
been run before?
MR. MCDOWELL:  No, we were just commissioning a new
vessel, and he happened to be there at that time, and while
he was there, we went ahead and ran the test with him, just
to support or substantiate the findings that we'd already
identified.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Well, what is your understanding
of the plans and drawings that you have to submit for Coast
Guard approval?
MR. MCDOWELL:  Well, it's my understanding that
it's up to the discretion of the local MSO [Marine Safety
Office] for our class vessel, to require or not to require
the submittal of plans for review.
During Lieutenant Dwayne Ray's visit, he had
determined that generally speaking, we were in the arena of
new construction instead of modifications and repair.  So
since that time, our office has asked for a plan review, and
we're going through this process at this time with our naval
architect.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Are there federal or state
agencies, such as higher authorities that you have to go to
for approval for a DUKW?
MR. MCDOWELL:  Yes.  In the State of Missouri, the
Department of Transportation out of Springfield comes down
and does an overview of our equipment.  We are going through
some testing procedures, even overseas for ease standards
right now with our equipment.  Because of the unique nature
of our DUKWs, there are several regulatory authorities that
provide oversight for our operation, as Andy Wilson with
Boston Duck Tour shared with you, he had to acquire, I
believe, 29 permits before he was allowed to operate.  So
there is quite a bit of oversight that goes on in our
business.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Thank you, Mr. McDowell.
MR. MCDOWELL:  Thank you.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Okay.  I'll continue with Mr.
Frank Serafine, and I'll follow in similar vein, follow on
some of the questions that you'd mentioned in your fine
presentation.
You'd mentioned that you installed three 1,200
gallons per hour pumps, bilge pumps, and I was wondering how
was the basis for that developed, what's the philosophy, how
was it negotiated with the Coast Guard.
MR. SERAFINE:  We're only required to carry
actually two of those pumps.  We put a third pump in just to
be -- to go over and beyond the call of duty.
One of the things that we've been lobbying for, and
some zones will allow and some zones won't, is being able to
use larger pumps that are engine-driven, but electric pumps.
 The only UL listed pumps that are Coast Guard certified
right now are the Lovett 1200's, which are kind of whimpy.
Given our choice, we would like to put in three 4,000 gallon
per hour pumps, which would give us a couple of hundred
gallons per hour.
In the event that a driver would make a huge
mistake and leave the plug out in our boat, that is our
largest potential hull presentation, three 4,000 gallon per
hour pumps can outrun it.  Can actually outrun even the plug
being out.
With a diesel, there should be no reason to not be
able to do that.  An engine driven pump is not any good once
the distributor gets wet or once the components get wet, or
if it's a gas engine distributor, once the components get
wet, it stalls, the pumps quit.  So we're just putting in as
many pumps as we can and putting them on dual batteries,
relying on a pair of batteries that will always be strong,
and give you plenty of time to get out, if you need to.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  And once again, the reason you
can't put in larger electric pumps at this point in time, is
because they're not approved?
MR. SERAFINE:  T-boat regs require that they're UL
listed, and the only UL listed pumps and electric pumps are
the Levitt's.  Rural makes some great pumps that are very
strong, like I say, 400 gallons per hour.  Quite honestly,
bilge pumps are cheap.  They're $150 a piece on $150,000
boat.  It's not an issue.  But they're not UL listed, and
they will not allow them in some zones.  I just sent a boat
into Baltimore, and they made us put in the 1,200's.  I've
sent them into Miami, Providence, no problem, Guam, which is
under U. S. control, no problem with the Rural pumps, for
example.
So that's kind of an issue that we would like to
find a way around let's say.  We do not like to rely on an
engine-driven pump.  I just think that's completely
unreliable.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Okay.  You had mentioned that, and
I've seen on your pictures, that the design trim of the
vessel when fully loaded with passengers, is fairly small,
it's fairly on even keel.  Do you have any idea in inches of
the stern free board when it's fully loaded with passengers?
MR. SERAFINE:  Our average freeboard is 30, 31
inches.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  At the stern?
MR. SERAFINE:  Oh, at the stern?  It's 29 inches.
So actually that boat in that picture, we've change the
ballast around.  One of the advantages we get when we stretch
it, is we get so much flotation, we can play with the
ballast, and that just happened to be a test that I had a lot
of good pictures that would show up, and that we could
actually format in.  But we've actually piled the ballast in,
the boats are running true and level loaded now, so we're
actually averaging just over 30 inches, close enough to 31 to
call it that.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Where's the ballast placed?
MR. SERAFINE:  On the very bottom of the hull.  The
Stalwart has a flat bottom.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  More, forward, up forward?
MR. SERAFINE:  Almost -- yeah, about two-thirds of
the way forward it has to be placed.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  In order to -- why was the ballast
placed there?
MR. SERAFINE:  I'm sorry?
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Why did you shift ballast?
MR. SERAFINE:  Well, we added an eight-foot
extension to the boat.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Uh-huh.
MR. SERAFINE:  And the extension only weighed 1,300
pounds, and we generated about 8,000 pounds of lift, so we
had to compensate for that.  It worked out to be tremendous,
because the bottom of the hull is now one and a quarter inch
thick.  We put a one-inch plate for all practical purposes,
almost the entire length of the hull, and that's welded solid
to it, so it makes the quarter inch hull even stronger.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Okay.
MR. SERAFINE:  And it's nice ballasted.  It happens
to be very, very low, so it acts as a real good keel for us,
and that's where we get our outstanding stability.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  The welding fabricators, their
certification, you mentioned they were AWS.  Are they the
ship barge hull-type expertise that you use?
MR. SERAFINE:  No, they're welders.  Some of them
come from different background, and we have them certified.
Our Coast Guard is in about every week at our place right
now, with us moving boats out of the shop every few weeks.
On any given week, we've got a boat that's ready for either a
pre-examination or a hull and welding examination, or a COI
[Certificate of Inspection].  He comes in; we fit up the
panels.  We've actually tested them in six-g overhead,
quarter inch, full penetration.  We do not have a full
penetration weld on the boat, let alone a six-g, which is
overhead.  We only have two overhead welds, and they're
welded on both sides.  And that's with eleven gauge.
But the way my company operates and the way our pay
scale works is, when you get certified, you get to the top of
the money, and all the welders make the same money.  And
that's it.  You pass this test and you're done.  And we just
do that so that I know I don't have to worry about it.
We have one welder -- and it's actually written in our
plans.  We had a naval architect to do our plans.  It's
written in the plans.  We have one welder that goes through
and inspects all the other welders' work.  And there's only
three guys in the shop that are allowed to do any hull
welding, any type water welding.  And those guys have all
been with me for about a year.
MR. CHATTERJEE: Okay.  Thank you.  Do you employ
the services of naval architects or professional engineers
for any aspects of your work?
MR. SERAFINE:  Yeah, we have a slew of engineers,
because I'm not one.  I'm a guy who knows how to build things
and run businesses.  I've employed a naval architect who's
done our hull stretch.
Our hull plans have been submitted to MSC.  We
actually expected our approval -- they've been approved in a
few local zones already.  We ran into a couple of problems
and in some areas we wanted to go into.  We wanted to go into
New York City.  We wanted to go into San Francisco, and the
local offices there, got a little nervous about the whole
thing.  These things have a tendency of scaring people when
they come in, because they don't fall into the regs, and
they're kind of like, we'd like somebody above to sign off,
so we've now submitted the plans to MSC [USCG Marine Safety
Center] and are expecting a global approval out of that.
I think they're kind of holding off on that till
this over, quite honestly.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Is the plan submittal to the MSC
rather than the MSO [Marine Safety Office], by recent change?
MR. SERAFINE:  Well we just decided to that about
six weeks ago.  I got aggravated with the thing going in for
plan review in every zone it went into, and try to put it
tactfully, just a way to throw a monkey wrench into the whole
thing, I guess, and we're totally confident of what we've
got, and we just know what the MSC approval, even though the
local zone will have a right to a ten percent review, as I
understand it, that pretty much is a give me, when it comes
in that okay, we don't have to worry about the hull, and
that's primarily what we're working on.
We have engineers that are hydraulic engineers,
super qualified guys who work for NASA.  They built the space
shuttle, landing or launch pad.  They can build our drive
system.  We have plenty enough of people that did our
electrical for us, and submitted it through the Coast Guard,
and got it approved, et cetera, so we have different
engineers for different things.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Okay.
MR. SERAFINE:  As it stands now, our engineering is
basically done.  We're building.  We know what we want, and
we know what we're doing, so --
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Okay.  You've kind of --
MR. TYRRELL:  Excuse me.  Excuse me.  During the
questioning, you've used a couple of terms I think you ought
to clarify for the audience.  What an MSO [Marine Safety
Office] is, and what a MSC [Marine Safety Center] is.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  By MSC, I meant the Marine Safety
Center of the Coast Guard, which is at a highest level than
the MSO, which is the Marine Safety Office, which is a local
office that often does plan review locally, and the MSC is a
higher level at the headquarters [USCG]-- comparable to
headquarters within Washington, D.C. who formulate policies
and look at unusual types of vessels.
You've kind of covered this, but if you could just
summarize the sequence of steps you go through with the Coast
Guard, when converting vessels now that you start with the
MSC [Marine Safety Center] or with the MSO [Marine Safety
Office] if you could just tell us how you go about it.
MR. SERAFINE:  Well, basically we're responsible
for inviting the Coast Guard out anyhow.  You know, they're
not just going to show up, although they're welcomed to, but
we have to invite them out and give them an agenda, what they
have to do.  And when they visit my shop right now, with
seven boats going on, they're typically coming out to do an
initial hull inspection, and that is, once we've stripped the
boat down, where they can get an opportunity to see it naked
for lack of a better word, look it over, see if there's any
rusted or pitted metal.  We don't have the problems that the
DUKWs have, because we're so thick, we don't have the rust
through, I guess, but we have to cut a lot out, nevertheless.
 And they just kind of look and make sure we cut out any
questionable metal.  And make sure that it's ready to be put
together and done.
Once we get the hull welded and put together,
they'll come out and inspect the welds.  Come out, make sure
we're building it to the plans, and quite honestly at this
point, now that we're into our -- I think we've had our 22nd
hull inspected at this point, now there's 22, 12 or 13 of
them are identical, our CWO [Chief Warrant Officer] doesn't
really need to look at his plan review anymore.  He knows
what he's looking at, and the same with my guys, we know what
we're building now.
So we're on production with it.  And that's a real
important thing in this business, is somebody doing it and
doing it right.  And I think the three guys up here, we're
all competitors and we all battle for the same customers, but
all three of us are doing it right, I think.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Okay.  My final question, Mr.
Serafine.  What would you say you found to be the most
complex or challenging areas when making these conversions,
if you would summarize it?
MR. SERAFINE:  It's getting it into the zone and
getting it -- and getting it certified there.  We can get a
COI at home, and when it gets there, just different local
zones will have different policies, whether it's as simple as
requiring -- most of it can be handled with money, so it's
not a big, big issue, but it's a pain in the butt
nevertheless, especially if you've reasonably inexperienced
operator who's going for his first time, they have a tendency
to pull their hair out.  But you know, some of them require
boat hooks or swimming pool hooks for rescue, an additional
life ring, the curtains have become an issue now.
For example, in Baltimore, they won't allow us to
run the curtains, in fact, they won't even allow us to have
them on the boat.  Whereas in Miami and Providence and
Washington, it was no problem whatsoever.  I know that was
all previous to the sinking, and that's a big issue for us,
because it really cripples us in our times of operation, if
it starts to rain, it kind of puts us out of business, or if
it's a little cool and breezy, especially an area like
Baltimore, being able to have side curtains on, can extend
your season a couple of months on both ends.
Even -- we even made a proposal for the side
curtains for Baltimore, where they just simply hung, and just
could be pushed out, and showed that somebody could jump
through them, and they say, no, it's not acceptable.  Stuff
like that, I guess.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  All right.
MR. SERAFINE:  We have a dry exhaust system.  The
DUKWs have a dry exhaust system.  T-boat regulations say that
gasoline boats shouldn't have dry exhaust systems.  In Guam,
suddenly the dry exhaust is a huge issue.  It's never been an
issue anywhere else, because it's a no brainer.  We have to
have it.
That's the kind of stuff that I guess is the
hardest part, to simply finding a set of regs that deals with
amphibians, so that when it gets to different zones, out of
fear, the local CWO doesn't pull back and go, you know, I
don't think I can let it run, but it can run in 14 or 15
other states and locations.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Okay.  Thank you, Mr. Serafine.
Thank you very much.
MR. SERAFINE:  Thank you.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Moving on to Mr. John Giljam.  I'm
going to start with a follow-up to your presentation.
You -- did I hear you say that the hull was made of
aluminum, and that the hull was retained, largely retained
and not renewed?
MR. GILJAM:  On the LARC's is what you're referring
to?
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Yes.
MR. GILJAM:  Yes.  The hull is what is completely
retained.  The hull on a military LARC is all three-
sixteenths plate, 5083 aluminum.  Well known for having
little or no corrosion problems on it whatsoever.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Is there any particular criteria
that you use to ensure that the integrity of the hull and
reliability from a future maintenance standpoint is going to
be acceptable?
MR. GILJAM:  Oh, yes, sir.  Once the hulls are
stripped out on the LARCs, there is a complete inspection
done on them.  Any areas that would have any pitting or
anything like that, or anything that it's had.  Truly most of
the damage that's been done to a LARC is because they were in
the military, some of them were beat up.  Okay.
In those instances, we work with the local Coast
Guard inspector, we inspect it at the same time.  In our
case, with our facilities up in New York State, the Buffalo
District office will come out and inspect the hulls, and
verify our findings.  We make an agreement on if there is a
cut or a penetration like that, in its stock form, there is a
set of regulations and guidelines for how much of the hull
needs to be sectioned out, the exact perimeters and the
welding and testing procedures that have to be done with
that.  The dye testing of the welds and so forth when it's
all done.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Okay.  And the Coast Guard works
jointly with you on that assessment?
MR. GILJAM:  Yes.  We've had a wonderful rapport
with the Coast Guard.  Anything that we've needed and we work
within two districts, just ourselves, and then the staff has
always been very, very helpful for us.  We do run into
problems with regulations in different places when we're
building a machine for a different location.
The local Coast Guard office has called the next
Coast Guard office.  It's not one set of books.  And we do
have that problem.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Okay.  Thank you.  You'd mentioned
that with the plug pulled out, there's enough flotation to
enable the vessel to stay afloat.  Now, you also mentioned
compartments.  Are there water-tight compartmentations, or
are these non-water-tight bulkheads?
MR. GILJAM:  What we've done is, we've designed the
system with an array of baffle plates and compartmentization
underneath the vessel.  You truly wouldn't have to put the
foam in them to have the same thing; however, if you wanted
to puncture -- say, you were to puncture one of the cells in
the bottom.  If it has foam in it, you can still not get any
water build up in it, and so therefore, the integrity of the
entire vessel is completely the same, as opposed to relying
on just a dry space.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  And by compartments, what did you
mean?
MR. GILJAM:  Well, there's quite an array of
compartments.  The entire lower section of the Hyrda-Terra?
is in cells.  They're roughly two foot by 28 inches, up to
the bottom of the floor, which is about 28 inches at its
deepest point.  So each one of those individual cells on the
outside perimeter of the Hyrda-Terra? is where we fill them
with foam, flotation material.
There is much more flotation available than
actually the craft would require.  Our craft is quite light.
 It only weighs 10,000 pounds empty, and fully loaded with
Coast Guard certified number of passengers, we're still under
17,000 pounds.  Whereas, that is opposed to a LARC that
weighs 19,000 pounds, in its stock form plus passengers, so
it takes up to about 26,000 pounds.
So the amount of flotation is relative to the
weight of the vehicle, and per the regulations of the Coast
Guard.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Okay.  Thank you.  When it floats
with a plug out, does it support the full capacity of
passengers, or is that reduced?
MR. GILJAM:  Well, it will obviously set lower into
the water, because you have to change the displacement.  I
don't have a graphic with me that shows that, but it does
show that the passengers and so forth, are still above water.
 It does not go down to floor height, and the Hyrda-Terra?
has a 46 inch free board, if I remember the calculations,
somewhere -- that's at fully loaded condition, and in a
flooded condition, we lose approximately 12 inches of that,
if I remember.  I don't remember that exactly, but we did it
in a flooded condition state.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Thank you.  Could you describe for
us the sequence of steps you go through with the Coast Guard
in getting plan approval.  Do you start with the MSO [USCG
Marine Safety Office] or the MSC [USCG Marine Safety Center]?
MR. GILJAM:  What we did is, we started right with
the -- because we live right near Savannah District.  Our
first contact for the Hyrda-Terra? was right through the
Savannah office, working locally with them.  Again, we've got
a longstanding rapport with the Buffalo office, because
that's where we also built the "Cool Diversion" was in New
York.
When we started the plan review for that one, that
was in Buffalo district.  The review process for us is,
before we started any construction whatsoever, we went in, in
each instance, and met with the Coast Guard directly first,
before anything was done.  Got a full handle on all of the
different things that the local office wanted.  They shared
all of their concerns that were going to go to the Washington
center, and all of those things that were going to be a plan
review item, that they wanted to take upstairs, shall we say,
to Washington.
Most all of the Hyrda-Terra? is through
Washington, because it is a novel and new design.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  But you submitted your plans and
drawings to the MSO, and they forwarded it to MSC if --
MR. GILJAM:  That is correct.  As I understand,
their plan review process is, the local MSO on a lot of shall
we call the minor issues, they can handle, so that the center
in Washington is not inundated with small details.  Things
that they obviously know will fit within the regulations.
You know, for example, the fire systems, and the
bilge systems and so forth like that, all we're able to be
taken care of through the local Savannah office on the Hyrda-
Terra?.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Okay.
MR. GILJAM:  The other -- the major part of that
is, the Hyrda-Terra? is built to ABS [American Bureau of
Shipping] standards as well, and so that has -- that aids the
Coast Guard in their plan review process as well.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  What guidance does ABS give you
and what interaction do you have with ABS?
MR. GILJAM:  Well, ABS is not much of an
interaction.  But ABS has a set of rules that is an accepted
standard.  It's American Bureau of Shipping.  And that
governs hull construction, stresses, they call it the section
modulus, if you will, the actual internal strength of the
hull, and its ability to support weight and that is
responsible for helping in determining framing structures.
Everything from that, including -- within those sets of
regulations are the ability to say, what number of pounds of
square foot of square area can the aluminum hull withstand,
and those standards are what govern it.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Let me refocus my question.  Is
this ABS Marine Services, who you pay to do some design work
for you, or is it a classification by ABS?
MR. GILJAM:  No, it is a classification by ABS.  It
is not an architectural firm, no.  American Bureau of
Shipping has a set of standards that the Coast Guard
recognizes.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Yes.  And there is a guidance book
for -- what is that booklet called, and normally, American
Bureau of Shipping rules are published in a guide book or --
MR. GILJAM:  That's exactly what it is.  It's a
guidebook, yes.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Do you remember the title?
MR. GILJAM:  I do not.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Okay.  And do you use that in
designing your vessels?
MR. GILJAM:  Well, originally the design was a
hundred percent in-house, and what we did is, a plan review
to double-check all of my work and so forth before we
submitted it.
I hired an outside naval architect, who I didn't
know, because it was important to us to prove our design to
ourselves.  So as a safety step and just good prudent
business, we retained an outside naval architect firm, to
take and review all of our plans, to see that they met all
the codes, that the weights, the stabilities, all of the
systems met and exceeded all of the regulations.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Okay.  Thank you very much, Mr.
Giljam.
MR. GILJAM:  Thank you.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Going to move on to Mr. Andy
Wilson with Boston Ducks.  And if you could, just describe to
us, some of these are the same questions that I'm going to be
asking, the steps that we go through with the Coast Guard.
Where do you start and how do you proceed to get the
certification?
MR. WILSON:  Generally, when we started, they would
be certified out of the St. Louis office, because they
remanufactured in Branson, Missouri by Ride the Ducks.  And
then that certificate would be transferred up to Boston and
re-reviewed in Boston.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  So the MSO at Boston reviews what
has already been approved at Missouri by MSO Missouri; is
that what you said?
MR. WILSON:  MSO St. Louis, correct.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  St. Louis.  Okay.  So do you need
to submit any plans or drawings?  Or what -- do you have to
do any additional work, or is it mainly paper-stamped?
MR. WILSON:  Initially we had to submit to MSO
Boston plans, stability tests, what have you, and they were
originally reviewed when we opened or as we were opening.
And now, as new vessels come on line, that same documentation
holds true for all our new DUKWs that go on line under the
Sister Vessel Act.  So there's initial documentation back in
1993 that was submitted to MSO Boston.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Okay.  And are the follow-on
vessels considered a similar sister vessels?
MR. WILSON:  Yeah.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Do you need to do stability tests
on any of the newer vessels?
MR. WILSON:  No.  It was originally done again
before we opened initially, and again, under the sister
vessel's act, because they are identical from vessel to
vessel.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Okay.  And the original approval
was done at MSO St. Louis you said.
MR. WILSON:  Correct.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Do you then find it necessary to
hire any specialists, professional engineers and naval
architects?  Do you do any design work yourself?
MR. WILSON:  We do, do minor qualifications, that
we run by the MSO in Boston, to get their approval.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Any examples of which would be?
MR. WILSON:  Replacement of boot system, which
we're going to be talking about tomorrow would be an example.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Okay.  From a safety standpoint,
what do you consider to be complex or challenging issues in
the conversion?  Do you have any thoughts on that?
MR. WILSON:  Not particularly from a conversion
standpoint.  From a maintenance standpoint, it just is like
any other mechanical thing.  There has to be a process
involved with qualified people, and that's the challenge, is
to making sure that they're properly maintained.  Once
they're properly converted, they need to be properly
maintained.  That's just an on-going business challenge.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  All right.  As far as the hulls
are concerned, do you scrap most of the original metal and
renew the plating or --
MR. WILSON:  Again, we -- all that is done in
Branson.  We purchase all our vehicles from Ride the Ducks in
Branson, so that's all done by Mr. McDowell, in the initial
conversion.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  And what is the de-watering and
bilge pump capacity on your DUKWs?
MR. WILSON:  Currently we operate with a Higgins
pump, and have two 1,000 gallon electric pumps.  In our
winter overhauls this year, in addition to the Higgins'
pumps, we are adding six electric bilge pumps of -- I believe
they're 3,700 gallon per minute electric bilge pumps, which
are Coast Guard approved.  So it'll give us a total de-
watering capacity between engine driven Higgins and the
electric bilge pumps of somewhere in the neighborhood of
about 36,000 gallons an hour.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  What was the basis of -- for
adding these pumps in addition to the Higgins' pump?  Did the
Coast Guard tell you to do that, or was there discussions?
MR. WILSON:  No.  This may sound a little bit
corny.  I grew up in the space program and redundancy to me
is obvious, you know, for safety.  As one of the panel
members discussed, the mechanical pump is powered by the
engine, and if the engine should fail, obviously you don't
have -- you've lost that de-watering capability from the
mechanically driven pump.
With electric pumps, with redundant batteries, I
believe it gives us redundancy to handle any potential
situation to improve safety.  And so it was not a
requirement.  It was something that we have been in a
constant state of improvement since we've opened.  It's not
been always -- as I mentioned earlier, the regulation of this
industry, because it is an emerging industry, it has lagged,
so we have not always waited for the regulators tell us what
to do, we've always attempted to do what we think is the
right thing, and so this is not a requirement.  This is a
thing that we feel is the appropriate thing to do.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Were these pumps added after
summer, or do they plan to be added after this year's summer?
MR. WILSON:  They're going to be added over our
winter overhauls.
MR. CHATTERJEE:  Thank you very much, Mr. Wilson.
And that ends my questioning.  I'm going to pass it over to
Mr. Tony Murray.
MR. TYRRELL:  Excuse me.  We're going to take this
opportunity to take a 15 minute break, and when we come back,
we'll resume with questioning with the technical panel.
Thank you very much.  Please be back on time, so we can try
and keep to our schedule as closely as possible.
(A 15 minute break was held at this time.)
MR. TYRRELL:  Could we ask you all to please take
your seats.  We're going to resume the forum.  We seem to
have lost a couple of panel members.
MR. HAMMERSCHMIDT:  For those in the audience that
may not have the detailed schedule that we have, we had
planned to conclude with this panel by 10:00 o'clock this
morning.  But as you can see, we're going longer, because we
have a lot more coverage we want to devote to this panel.
And I might add, these presentations have been very
impressive this morning, and we appreciate them.
And so it's for that reason that we're a little bit
behind schedule.  But we've taken this opportunity to come
all the way down here to Memphis, to learn more about safety
approaches to these amphibious vessels, and so we want to
make sure we ask all the questions we need to ask, rather
than confining ourselves to the parameters of this preprinted
schedule.
MR. TYRRELL:  Okay.  At this time, we'll resume
questioning of panel number one with Anthony Murray.
MR. MURRAY:  Thank you, Mr. Tyrrell.  This question
is for Mr. Bob McDowell.  Have you found any hulls to be
beyond repair or beyond the point of being able to be
converted into a passenger vessel?
MR. MCDOWELL:  Well, that's a good question.  I
believe that a lot of the hulls that you find today would
typically be unrepairable by even an above average
restoration shop.
Some of the areas where you can have some
difficulty in the repair, will be in the area of lamination
of the primary hull to the frame in the rear suspension area,
where the trunion bar is located, and where it wraps as it
goes back into the propulsion area.
If you were to completely disassemble the hull from
the framework in that rear area, you would discover that
there's probably a good opportunity for a minor degree of
pitting, depending on how well the equipment has been taken
care of.
What we do, as you saw our rack there, and we turn
it upside down, we don't leave that to chance.  We hundred
percent go back in and rebuild that area.  We do upgrade the
gauge-in material through that rear suspension and trunion
area, to a ten gauge material and laminate -- through the
lamination process, use a 3M adhesive that keeps the water
out of there for the future.
So when we place a unit, we're not going to have to
worry about that particular exposure.
Some of the equipment that I have seen that has
been run in salt water and not kept up with, there will be an
excessive pitting in the primary framework, which probably
would render that or disable the equipment.  But I guess it's
feasible to go in and replace every particular component from
a physical standpoint, but from a practical standpoint, they
may not be the case.
There's a lot of expensive jigging and things that
you need to have to maintain the relative proximity and
clearance values and geometry of the suspension system, to
keep the vehicles or vessel, in this case, safe.
MR. MURRAY:  Thank you, Mr. McDowell.  My next
question is for Mr. Frank Serafine.  Prior to -- well, when
you got into the business of conversions, and making your
design applications to the Coast Guard, was there any
requirement for a background knowledge of the marine industry
or any experience you had in the maritime field that had to
be proven?
MR. SERAFINE:  No.  Pretty much, anybody can build
one of these things.  I think a tremendous amount of the
units out there have been built in body shops and sent over
to a mechanic, you know, can throw a motor in it, and send it
over to the upholstery guy and so on and so forth.  And I
think a lot of the first ones were done that way, and they'll
wear you out from a maintenance standpoint that way.
We had a full auto business.  We did everything in-
house, but I had no marine background whatsoever.  I got the
regs.  I was lucky enough to build for someone who'd already
built some, so he knew, and I got involved with the Coast
Guard, and we learned kind of the hard way.  And I'll be the
first one to tell you, the first one ain't nearly as good as
the last one.
MR. MURRAY:  Okay.  Thank you, Mr. Serafine.  The
next question is for Mr. John Giljam.  And this relates to --
can you relate to us some of your experience during these
conversions of building at your site location for a
particular customer in another state or another Coast Guard
jurisdiction, where you've come across your dealings with the
Fire Vessel Codes, some of the modifications that you've had
to do from your original construction site to the destination
site.
MR. GILJAM:  Yes, I can.  One example of that, in
one of the conversions that we did for a customer that bought
multiple units, the engine room of this particular design
that we built is an open engine room.
The fan and the air exchange system takes in a
hundred percent of the air for the radiator right through the
engine room itself.  And so you have a tremendous volume of
air that is coming through and into the engine room and then
is exited out of the radiator in the back of the unit.
Having spent 15 years in the fire department, along
with the engineering and so forth, when you have that
tremendous amount of volume of air flowing in an area, a
fixed fire extinguisher system is of no use whatsoever.
You know, you could discharge the standard CO2 fire
extinguisher system, if that engine were running at proper
operating speed, there's so much air going through there,
that it is ineffective.  And the Buffalo office agreed with
that, and there is a provision in the regulations that state
that it would be such, it would not be feasible.  Now, you
obviously would have the fire extinguisher systems on board
as needed, if there were a fire.
One of our customers took it to another city and we
ran into very simply the officer in that city flat out
stated, we don't consider any engine room to be open.  So
therefore, it defeated the entire book of the regulations,
because right in that, the one statement is left up to the
officer in charge, at his discretion.  At his discretion, he
claimed that an engine was closed, and so therefore, a
different system had to be devised.
That is just one example of the problems that we
have when you go to cities.  The book of regulations is not
the book of regulations if any one individual can circumvent
or completely change the way that that goes.  And that is a
very big problem.
MR. MURRAY:  Okay.  Thank you, Mr. Giljam.  I'll
now turn over the questioning to Mr. Rob Henry.
MR. HENRY:  Mr. McDowell, have you in your
conversion process converted any DUKWs for state
certification, as opposed to Coast Guard certification?
MR. MCDOWELL:  No, but we've discussed that as a
company, through our management meetings, and basically, our
company culture, our processes and procedures would simply
not change.  We feel like these regulations have been written
for a reason.  We study not only the regulations, and try to
meet it as best we can.
MR. HENRY:  Did you have an option when you were
converting your DUKWs to going either state or federal?
MR. MCDOWELL:  In some of the locations we've been
approached on, we would not be under the arm of the Coast
Guard, and that's why we've had the discussions regarding
that, if we were to go into that market, that would be part
of our participation criteria.
MR. HENRY:  Have you looked at the state
certification process, and can you comment on in contrast
that to federal regulations?
MR. MCDOWELL:  No, I haven't, but Andy Wilson and I
have gone to Washington, D.C. and talked to the Coast Guard
regarding this with Captain Basil and the few members of his
staff, and would recommend, because of the unique nature of
these vehicles, and I think the regulatory authorities, of
course want to do what they can to ensure the safety, to be a
part of the developing syllabus to help some of the
inspecting officers understand some of the unique
characteristics of the vehicles or vessels, that it may be,
that it might not be necessarily self-evident.
MR. HENRY:  Okay.  Each of you have commented on
the difficulties in applying Subchapter T to amphibious
passenger vessels, and conflicts and difficulties throughout
the zones, Coast Guard zones.  Mr. McDowell, how would you
improve this process?
MR. MCDOWELL:  Well, I think it's important to
recognize that the federal regs as they've been written.  The
intent, of course, is to make the vehicles or vessels or
whatever the case may be safer.  And that's certainly our
intent.
I think the interpretation of the regs often times
needs to be debated from an educational process, both for the
individual operators and the inspecting officers to get it to
the safest or the most practical application.
I do believe -- it's my personal belief that the
local MSO does need to be involved in the process, due to the
unique operating situations that you get into in a zone.  I'm
not sure -- it's certainly our intent to build a vessel that
we could take anywhere to use, you know, for sightseeing
tours, given reasonable constraints.
But I do understand because of local history and
knowledge and past history and incidents, that there are
certain things that are -- certain local citizens are
sensitive to, that need to be addressed and I understand that
influence.
So I guess in conclusion, although I am a little
frustrated from time to time.  Most of the requirements that
were requested of us by reviewing the equipment in other
operating zones have been, I think been reasonable requests
that we have met.  The ones that haven't been from our
perspective, we've debated with and worked out reasonable
solutions to the problems.
But I would like to commend the Coast Guard.  For
instance, when we went to Boston and Joe McKegnie took the
time to take two days out of his busy schedule to come to
Branson, and spend two days reviewing the equipment, but
importantly the culture of our company that supports the
equipment, to ensure the long-term continuity of safety,
maintenance and so forth.
MR. HENRY:  In the area of certification of these
vehicles for highway application and marine application, are
there any areas that provide unusual conflicts in meeting
their demands of highway requirements and marine
requirements?
MR. MCDOWELL:  Yes.  I call them design
constraints.  Basically, you have a boat that's being driven
on the road, and a truck that's being operated in the water.
 And with that, there are some design constraints that are a
little difficult to address.
One of them being the rear bumper area.  In order
for the DUKW to enter the water correctly, the nose has to
come up as the ramp is going down into the water, and it
would be like in to put a rear bumper on an airplane and drag
when it starts its lift-off cycle.
Most all of the other areas, I believe we've
addressed.  Not too many come to mind.  I know the headlight
height on the original DUKW, for instance, is up on the upper
deck area.  We've incorporated that into our hull.
I think that you can go down through the hulls and
come up with good solutions to address the intent of the
regulatory requirement in most cases.
MR. HENRY:  In your conversions, have you looked at
methods to reduce the susceptibility and consequences of
internal flooding?
MR. MCDOWELL:  We've looked at everything, front to
back, and as a participant in this, we felt like it was
important for us to bring some potential solutions to the
group to review.  I do have an item that I can show in
regards to that if it's appropriate at this time.
MR. HENRY:  I wouldn't have a problem, if the head
panel.
MR. MCDOWELL:  Okay.
MR. HENRY:  Please.
MR. MCDOWELL:  Part of our criteria in reviewing
the exposure as a result of this incident had us without the
facts, so we made some assumptions, valid or not, and as our
group, we have a full time safety officer, Ron Hobbs, who's
with me here today, and we do have participation on a monthly
basis from all the disciplines of our company that
participates in review and oversight of the safety, as well
as input from the drivers.
Some of the potential areas of risk, I guess, to
breach the hull, may come in the rear area, where the prop
shaft is located.  If there was to be a failure with the V-
strut, due to the cap coming off, a bolt coming out or
whatever, the prop shaft would lose its relative location,
and could get the prop into the side of the hull.
We've developed a very inexpensive retention collar
that we've implemented on all of our equipment, and shared
this knowledge with Boston, and I do have some pictures of
it.  If there's any of the operators that would take a quick
look at it, it just takes a little bit of time and energy to
put on, and eliminates that exposure.
The other exposure that we hear about, as it
relates to the boots, I believe primarily comes from the
geometry of the suspension, and making sure that you fully
understand where the exposures can potentially be.
There's been a lot of blame on the boot itself, but
it's -- I liken it to a glass window in your house.  If
somebody throws a ball through it, you don't blame the window
for breaking.  If it's put under undue duress, due to other
components not being in place, you can have a failure in that
regard.
But as it pertains to the boot, it's bolted up to
the hull, similar to this here, and what we've done, is we've
incorporated a piece of rigid rubber material that has the
ability to give, and it's impregnated with a fiber in here.
It's actually rock belt, rock quarry belt material that's oil
resistant, and it's been incorporated into this area here.
Ordinarily, this area here would be open and the
driveshaft would rotate in this area.  We initially looked at
a rigid system here, such as a metal plate or what not, but
it was very difficult to get the tolerances close enough to
do a significant amount of good.
So when we developed this, and you can run the
driveshaft through here, it will seat itself into the rubber
and ride in very close proximity.  And after it seats in, it
makes a little bit of an oval shape, so the primary riding
position of the driveshaft is what's denoted as a circle
here, and this area up here, then becomes your maximum
exposure point, if there was a breach of the boot.
So I think this is a very inexpensive reasonable
solution to incorporate into the DUKW.  And I know Andy has a
solution as well, that he's been working on from his
perspective and he'll be presenting that as well.
MR. HENRY:  Have you looked at what percentage of
reduction in flooding that addition would contribute?
MR. MCDOWELL:  I guess, you know, when Dwayne Ray
from the -- Mr. Lantz's office in Washington came out, we did
some review without that member being in place, and he did
some reports on the volume, and it -- I guess it's -- will
boil down to what is the debated overall exposure area.  And
I think -- I don't have one that's burned in, but I believe
that to be accurate based on what my staff has been able to
provide me, and I think you could take that residual value
there that's in that electrical shape and determine what that
is.  And it looks to be probably close to the same combined
diameter maybe of an inch pipe or something.  So whatever
volume a one-inch pipe would provide as opposed to the
overall exposure that you have there.
MR. HENRY:  Okay.  Several other of the panel
members have talked about the floatation, compartmentation
foaming.  Have you looked at all for your conversions?
MR. MCDOWELL:  Yes, we have.  There's several
things you have to take into consideration, when you look at
any aspect of this vessel, this is a relatively small vessel,
and anything that you do will definitely have an influence on
the rest of the componentry of the vessel.
We did an initial study on some of the closed
areas, and I hear what the gentlemen saying about closed cell
foam, and the benefits of it.  The down side is that it can
potentially become water saturated over a long period of
time, and I know that's debatable, and I'm not trying to
diminish that value.
I do believe that if there's an opportunity in new
construction, that I think that's something that would be
prudent to look at.
As we looked at this issue as a result of the
incident, we tried to determine what could be done,
relatively inexpensively to help minimize what the perceived
exposure would be.  And I would caution us to remember the
number of people that have been hauled successfully over the
course of the many years that these DUKWs have been in
operation, and the longstanding good history that we've had.
I've also brought a working model of the drive tube
assembly, and its relationship with the retention ring, and
some of the things that -- just from an educational
standpoint, some of the operators may or may not be aware of,
but it'll certainly help get everybody up to speed, in terms
of the geometry of the suspension, and where some of the
potential exposure could be to help in the education process.
And if it's appropriate to share that with you
today at this time or later, that will be fine as well.
MR. HENRY:  Please.  That's why we're here.
MR. MCDOWELL:  I don't have a table to work from,
so I help everybody can see this okay.  Basically, this is
the area that we're talking about before, where that seal
could be incorporated into this, and you can see your overall
exposure area here, that -- do we have a table that we could
set this up on?  Probably not, I guess.
Can I sit it up there?  You have a -- this drive
tube has been shortened up for demonstration purposes.  I'll
try to do my best to explain what happens when the DUKW
enters the water.
As we were discussing, when this DUKW goes in the
water this way, the range of motion issues that you get into
with the rear suspension, the rear axle housing comes up, in
the intermediate axle housing comes down.
The DUKW has been designed to accommodate for this.
 There's a tension ring here that's fastened to the
differential, and so as this duck goes in the water, and that
goes through this range of motion, the driveshaft is
stretched a little bit, which is allowable by the yoke system
in the driveshaft.
So when this comes out, the retention collar's
there to hold this in place, the right relative proximity,
and the drive tube is held by the hanger assembly.
Now, in the restoration process, if this component
is not in good shape and somebody rebuilds it, and it is
shorter than the original component, there is a likelihood
that this can fall into this position when it goes into the
water, and then when the DUKW tries to recover on its natural
position on the road, it has no way to get back to where it
needs to be.  And so there's some exposure there.
If the driveshaft is remanufactured and it's too
short, then even though this can be in the right proximity,
you can pull the driveshaft out of its yoke, and then not
have a way for it to recover back in its original position.
We have brought a yoke with us that has some
additional clearance value, that helps minimize that
exposure, but that length of that driveshaft is important as
well.
Also, it can run the risk if the rear axle stops
aren't maintained properly, that allows increased range in
motion, or if during the restoration process somebody relaxes
the springs a little bit too much, and that will actually
cause the increase range of motion as well.
But I thought through this aid, it'd be a lot
easier for people to understand and visualize how all this
system works, and it's quite a reliable and well-suited for
its intended purpose.
It's just a boot that fastens up to the hull, and
it's secured by a band clamp and we just -- we haven't had
much trouble out of it as long as you maintain them properly.
MR. HENRY:  Mr. McDowell, it appears that, you
know, your discussion of range of motion relates to the
original design of these vehicles for wartime application,
and we saw the World War II video, you know, going over sand
dunes, sort of off-road capability.
MR. MCDOWELL:  Yes.
MR. HENRY:  And typically that's not how they're
operated now.  Have you looked at all -- at ways to constrain
or reduce this range of motion, and limit problems you've
discussed?
MR. MCDOWELL:  I guess that's one way of fixing it,
but it's better to keep the good thinking and the engineering
that was actually developed, incorporated into it.  So I
would think that it would be better to generate a syllabus to
help the inspecting officers be able to identify if there's
something that has -- one of the components that has
shortcomings that would allow some exposure there.
I think the original DUKWs were designed to climb
up 60-degree slopes and all kinds of those things, and we
don't really get into those kind of situations now, but where
our exposure is, I believe, is as its entering the water, is
where we have the maximum range of motion issues with the
rear suspension.
There's nothing wrong with it, it's just something
that it needs to be maintained, and it's important that
everybody understands the geometry of it, and what could
potentially happen if some of those components weren't
recreated as they were initially designed.
MR. HENRY:  Okay.  Thank you, sir.
MR. MCDOWELL:  Thank you.
MR. HENRY:  Mr. Serafine, when you talked about
getting into the business of running amphibious passenger
vehicles, you said you had looked over the choices of DUKWs,
different types, and you said the vehicle of your choice was
the Alvis Stalwart.  What criteria did you make that
selection on?
MR. SERAFINE:  I truly don't want to get into a
situation where this turns into a marketing campaign for the
Stalwart and I hurt the DUKWs in any way.  I just feel that
it's a stronger, more durable vehicle.  It has tremendously
more freeboard.  It has less hull penetrations.  The
likelihood of sinking one, we're talking about adding foam
and everything else, but it's pretty hard to puncture a
quarter inch hull at six knots.
If you don't have hull penetrations with rubber
boots or such, that you have to worry about being faulty or
breaking or being left off or whatever, and if your risk of
puncture is almost none, the foam issue becomes a mute point.
We have tremendous freeboard.  We have tremendous
stability with the new drive-train, we have dependence,
maintenance and reliability.  With the hydrostatics, there
are through-hole fittings that are approximately an inch, for
the sake of conversation, that are welded in the hull, and a
hydraulic hose bolts on one side, and a hydraulic hose bolts
on the other side.
In the event that hose should blow to the wheels,
which it shouldn't by the way, because the wheels aren't
driven in the water anyways, but if did blow, there's a valve
that will shut that hose off instantly.  We'd lose about
three gallons of fluid.
The water would only go back into the hydraulic
system.  It still wouldn't get in the hull.  We have a one
inch drain hole so we can wash and service the hull.  If you
have a daily hull inspection, you're checking your welds and
your hull integrity, and you don't have hull penetration, you
shouldn't have to worry about taking water and what if you
do, and how are you going to get it out, and having foam to
keep it up, et cetera.
The other reason, is it can carry more capacity
than the other vehicles, and still be at a reasonable size.
It's actually smaller than the other vehicles in physical
dimension, yet it can fit everybody in.
So that was my reason for choosing the Stalwart or
thinking that it would be the vehicle of choice.
MR. HENRY:  Thank you.  The side loading gates,
they are sealed up in the --
MR. SERAFINE:  They're cut off.  Yeah, they're cut
off.  There was a photo where we completely cut those off,
and break bend new 11 gauge steel and completely replace
that.  All of the freeboard is totally brand new and it's all
11 gauge steel.  The thickness again is a big issue.  Pretty
much everything above the waterline is 11 gauge.  There's
only a couple of inches of 11 gauge, and it's very high duty
stuff.
MR. HENRY:  You had mentioned that you welders are
AWS certified.  Are your mechanics certified?
MR. SERAFINE:  Mechanics right now don't need much
more certification than to be able to put a brand new
complete Cummins motor in from Cummins, quite honestly.
There's not a lot -- it's an assembly process now.  They've
all been trained in our shop.  There is no certification
necessary than a standard ASE, but it's an assembly deal
right now, quite bluntly.  We're not rebuilding a bunch of
stuff.
MR. HENR