WOW very sad indeed, I do wonder if she was "riding on the bow" or bow riding???? I saw 5 boats this weekend with kids riding up on the bow, legs under the rail, arms over the rail this weekend. takes one slip and can be very bad.
I hate to say this but if she was riding on the bow, doesn't she bear some personal responsibility?? I guess what I am getting at is if she was actually breaking the law, why was he charged??
WOW very sad indeed, I do wonder if she was "riding on the bow" or bow riding???? I saw 5 boats this weekend with kids riding up on the bow, legs under the rail, arms over the rail this weekend. takes one slip and can be very bad.
I hate to say this but if she was riding on the bow, doesn't she bear some personal responsibility?? I guess what I am getting at is if she was actually breaking the law, why was he charged??
Very sad either way
I would guess Maritime law comes into play, as operater of the craft I beleive your held responsible for actions of all on board.
The article said the boat was a bow rider and she was riding IN the bow. That is very common in ski boats, we have a Malibu bow rider, which means the bow is open and you have seats in it, so it would be hard to be on the top of the bow. I can't believe it would be against policy to sit there, the west coast is full of open bow boats. It is also not uncommon to ski 32-35 MPH and if you are pulling a skier no one can sit on back bolster, so we almost always have someone sitting in the bow. I can see how this can happen, many ski boats are extremely flat to the water, often the driver can drag his hand along the top of the water from a seated position, that tells you how low the sides are. Ski boats are also designed to turn on a dime, I remember that was part of the demo when we bought the boat, the salesguys was doing donuts showing us how stable the boat was in quick fast turns. So if the driver suddenly hooks a turn, and you are not paying attention and sitting in a bow with low sides, I can see how easy it might be to get tossed. This is sad, but she is lucky to have only lost an arm, basically he ran over her since the prop is underneath the boat quite a ways. This will definitely make me think more about bow safety in our ski boat.
Yes it looks like she probably was riding in the bow, even though I would say it was not intened to be ridden on. Its a fish and Ski and looks like the bow is the Fish part, not nothing to hold onto and very shallow freeboard??? Very sad.
very strange bow set up on that boat, I am not sure if they are all like the one in the ad but it certainly does not look like a very safe place to lay unless you were moored. I wonder if the boat company is out of business, I could not find them on the net, just a sail boat company. I would be interested to see if they advertised this as a bow rider
Although this was an incident with a moving boat , this is a great reminder that the back of the boat has a lot of very hazardous objects attached. Please Please remember this when your boating this summer. The transom is not the place to "hang out".
Safe boating!
Julie
Years ago I was tied up with a group of boaters in the Basset Channel off Lk. St. Clair and we were all on our swim platforms drinking and dancing. One guy fell off and onto one of those old Mercury TRS cleavers. it cut him from his ankle to his knee about an inch deep. It looked like someone gutted a fish. We got on the radio to the coast guard while the other boat took him to the station a couple miles away. An ambulance was waiting for him and they got him to the hospital before he bled to death. He got over 400 stitches in 3 layers. Those props are sharp. Be carefull around them. Sorry about the poor woman.
Gold Member
