One surviving relative claimed yesterday the boat’s captain, who is in hospital, told the 31 passengers not to bother wearing life-jackets and to stay seated.
After the tragedy at Table Rock Lake near Branson, Missouri, last Thursday, Tia Coleman said: “I lost all my children. I lost my husband. I lost my mother-in-law. I lost my father-in-law. I lost my uncle. I lost my sister-in-law. I lost my nephew. The captain told us, ‘Don’t worry about grabbing the life-jackets – you won’t need them’.”
Ms Coleman, of Indianapolis, Indiana, did not say how many of her children drowned, only that she and another relative survived.
Agonisingly, it emerged the family was not supposed to have been on the amphibious Ride the Ducks “duck boat”, according to witness Tracy Beck. She said she saw them taking group photos in her queue to board a second tour craft.
But a ticket checker said they should have boarded at a different location and made the family switch to the slightly later boat which sank. Mobile phone video shows two of the boats battling fierce winds and spray before one makes it back to land.
The other is driven back and capsizes. The 17 dead were aged between one and 70. Seven of the 14 survivors were injured, one seriously. State law requires all children under seven to wear life-jackets on boats at all times except in the “cabin area”.
Branson sheriff Doug Rader could not confirm whether passengers were wearing life vests or if the boat’s windows were open. Ride the Ducks owner Jim Pattison said staff told him the storm “came out of nowhere”.
Rick Kettles, who owns the Lakeside Resort General Store and Restaurant, said: “I have been on my lake most of my life and I have never seen it like this.
“I am trying to figure out why the boats were out there. I don’t get it, having a captain’s licence myself.”