I didn't hear of that---but I know the boat you're speaking of. Saw him at the Holland pier for the card pick-up and then head south to South Haven. Actually, I was afraid that might happen with one of the boaters----a GPS would have been a good thing to have had for days like those. Hope everyone was okay.

That ALMOST happened to a friend of mine's 30' boat back in the mid 80's on a real foggy day for the U-GOTTA-REGOTTA run from St. Joseph heading north to Saugatuck. It was a foggy June day with only about a 1/4 mile visibility and very calm water. We were due to leave at about 10am, but waited till almost 1pm. From what we figured out, it happend just south of Saugatuck where there is a bit of a point in the shoreline. I was on another a boat---a 32' Hustler during the run, but my friend's 30' Scarab had hit a patch of really dense fog and slowed down to where he was barely on plane and shortly found himself between some swimmers floating on rubber rafts on both sides of him and then could see the shoreline about 30 yards away! :eek: Scared him real bad! He immediately came off plane to an idle and could feel the props hit the sandy bottom. The only way he was able to come out of it is because he first saw the swimmers! He told me that he would have gladly have beached the boat rather than hit any swimmers! A few miles later everyone made it safely to the Saugatuck pier/jetty and suddenly there were LARGE holes in the fog with the sun breaking through---- the fog was finally begining to break up. Thankfully, he only came out of it with some very slightly tweeked prop blade tips on his cleavers that were barely noticable. That fog can really mess up a person's bearings. :(

Yeah .... that sand isn't too good for the bearings either ... OUCH !!!

Oh $&#@ how high up did he make it? Was anyone hurt?

Actually a friend of mine named Luther with a 31 formula beached his boat in the fog, up north I think. He wasn't the only one who did it that day either. They had a hand held GPS, they didn't realise they set it from inside the channel. Ooops.

Seems like quite a few people had problems that day,including myself.After the boats took off for Holland I decided to run up to Muskegon for lunch.Half way there the fog was so bad that at idle you could only see 30-40ft.Also found out that my hand held Garmin GPS is off by about 300'!!!! Thought I was following the South wall in,but ended up grounded between the wall and the light house wall!!!!However someone in a 32 Fountain wasn't so lucky he had hit the stone wall at speed and tore up the port side of the boat real bad.Fred, from this board may have more details....I had to take a $70.00 cab ride back to holland to get my truck and trailer Sunday morning,and found a ticket on my windshield for overnight parking in the DNR lot:mad:
Nice meeting you Fred.....
Steve

Just north of South Haven my port side drive broke I raised the drive and shut the motor off. At that time I was able to see shore so I knew where I was. Then the fog really rolled in. After about a mile my wife said I see a lady walking. She was about 20' away and I was in 2' of water. I bumped bottom once and was able to get back out into deep water without damage to the boat. I left the motor run so I could tell how deep the water was from then on.

I left the boat in a friends slip and got a ride back to Grand Haven to draw the worst poker hand ever. Even after the $100's for two more cards, the best I could do was a pair of 2's.

But even after all of this, I had a outstanding time. Met some great people and saw the most awesome boats.