Local company sees minimal impact on business so far
National Park Duck Tours had already launched 10 trips with at least 15 passengers each by early Friday afternoon, indicating that, so far, tourists have been not been frightened away by a tragedy that unfolded only hours before when a duck boat sank on a lake in Missouri, killing 17 of the 31 people on board.
The “Ride the Ducks” boat ran into trouble during a storm Thursday night on Table Rock Lake just outside of Branson. Investigations are still underway to determine what exactly happened.
“We have been busy,” Stacy Roberts, owner of National Park Duck Tours, said Friday.
“I wasn’t expecting it, to be honest. But you never know with these accidents — anywhere in the country — what it is going to do to you.
“I think we could have some fallout from this one because we are so close to Branson,” he added.
Roberts’ business has weathered a number of storms since his family started operating its duck fleet back in 1992. The worst impact, so far, involved the sinking of a duck owned by a competitor in Hot Springs in May 1999. Thirteen passengers drowned when the “Miss Majestic,” operated by Land & Lake Tours, sunk in Lake Hamilton. Land & Lake Tours is no longer in business.
Since then, a handful of other, less fatal, accidents have happened in Boston, Philadelphia and Seattle.
“What happened in 1999 did impact us for about a year or so,” Roberts said. “Some of the other (accidents) did a little bit.”
Roberts said his ducks are safe. He said that while other companies in the country manufacture their ducks, his business operates vehicles that were used in World War II. The amphibious vehicles, which are able to travel on land and on water, were used to transport supplies and troops during the war.
“We have never had an accident on the water,” he said. “Never more than a rudder going out or something simple. They are pretty much a bulletproof, waterproof system.”
The U.S. Coast Guard inspects the vessels regularly, Roberts said.
“About three months of the year, they are here every week, and they have the right to come in anytime, which they do, and inspect,” he said. “I think our vehicles are top notch. I think our drivers have plenty of training.”
But one concern that Roberts says is impacting business is the weather. With the intense heat and the rapid formation of severe thunderstorms, he says it has become harder to predict what might happen out on the water. He and his drivers are constantly monitoring the weather. Roberts said this year, National Park Ducks has closed early on several days due to the possibility of storms and canceled more tours than previous years.
“We have had several storms blow up,” he said. “I have looked at the radar and just seen red dots everywhere. I didn’t know whether to send a boat out or whether the weather would miss us, so we decided to close.”
Roberts said a duck recently ended a tour early because of bad weather. He noted that Table Rock Lake is much larger than Lake Hamilton, and that the ducks on Lake Hamilton have almost a dozen different points on the water where they can get to land.
“We will live and learn from this,” Roberts said. “We will try to get the industry better.”
Alaina Vidrine, visiting Hot Springs from Louisiana, disembarked from a National Park Duck around 3 p.m. Friday. She and her husband had heard about the tragedy in Missouri, but she said she felt like it must have been caused by a natural disaster and not human error or a mechanical malfunction.
“It seemed like the lake they were in was a lot bigger,” Vidrine said. “We didn’t have any concerns. The life jackets are there, and the driver explained all of the safety procedures. We felt safe. It was a good experience.”
But some were not as certain. As National Park Duck Tour employees tried to sell tickets to passers-by outside one of their branches in downtown Hot Springs, one woman walking by said she was not willing to take any chances.
“Have you seen the news today?” she said. “No thank you.”