I see you also ride a motorcycle as well. That's one of the first things a street motorcycle rider learns; hopefully in a training class but sometimes on the street.

We'll have 3 ATs down there of newer vintage. We have a 37 getting close to being done, but we are not going to rush it.

rearend means hitting the BACK of a vehicle not the side..
and yes if someone pulls out right in front of you and stops and you REAREND them you are at fault unless you have a third party witness to back you up..

Had that jet ski hit me they would have hit the side of my boat

The experience I learned from road racing motorcycles has save my butt more time than I can count on the street. Easy to be cautious and evasive on something so nimble like a bike, plus you are open and vulrible....much like a jet ski, which should be more careful but are not.

The last thing I would want is a collision of any kind. 23 years of operation on both skis and boats since I was 14 and still no incidents, I would like to keep it that way but I still want to to have fun.

I'll send you an email about key west. We will be down for the week, as newly weds :) wifey wants a little more cabin, but still wants to go fast.

And you'd be proving to a jury that they hit you, and you didn't hit them. Oh well.

How come you ran between those two islands, and not to the south of them where it's alot deeper? It can be as shallow as 2-3 feet deep on that side while it's 6+ on the other side.

Going just by the video posted, this is what I see:

• I see a small wake on the starboard side of the boat that is fairly close and on a semi-parallel course
• I see that wake get bigger and still semi-parallel but intersecting, then....
• I see a waverunner that is being passed WAY too close for the speeds being driven
• I see that the waverunner driver probably didn't have eyes in the back of his head
• I see that the waverunner didn't realize this boat was passing at >25mph
• I see that once the waverunner realized the boat was so close in passing, they turned way from the boat (probably scared)

Based only on this video, I would have to say that if there was an impact betwen the two vessels, the overtaking vessel would be at fault. The waverunner's course didn't change that much in this video but there was no reason to pass the waverunner at such a close range.

What if the Fountain had a mechnical failure at speed and altered course to starboard by 10 feet? Why people put others at risk like this (and their own financial well being) is beyond me. What about keeping 15-20 feet of distance (minimuim) between vessels for every 10mph of forward speed? Would that make boating be any less fun?

Wouldn't be hard to prove with a hole in the side of my boat. Plus.....this just in, they didn't hit me


Normally I run the south side of the island, there was a guy fishing on the south side of the island, just of the south shore point, I went to the north side. 8 ft of water if you stay close to the island and away from the north shore.

I think a lot of good will come from this near miss like the LOTO Fountains video.
Wake up calls don't have to come from collisions, stuffs, and ejections.
On the LOTO video I learned about my unsafe leash on my lanyard because I liked it long to reach the port side gunnel while in motion, I could have been tossed to the deck, and in the meanwhile my boat would still have been under power with the drives engaged and no pilot.
On this video I learned that you never can trust a jet ski rider, who wants to race or not, to hold his line. Not that I ever trusted one before, now I'll keep sharper attention on my passing of any vessel carrying higher speeds like mine during the pass.
While many may think of some of these posts as a catfight I disagree, the sharing of input ilke this will make everybody a little bit wiser when they're faced with the same situation.

I'm thankful that it was simply a close call, and am optimistic that the girl operating the PWC got a bit of a wake up call herself. She put herself in a bad spot on the water at a high rate of speed with her actions regardless of who would have been held accountable.

See ya,
Kelly

What you don't see is the jet ski "coming to get me" If I got off plane everytime a ski came to race, or jump a wake I would get no where. Sometimes they are like flies.

That wake was in video for about 4 seconds, that is how long that ski was next to me. When they came from the bay to my left they were making direct eye contact (both drive and pass) and I had already started to turn slightly left wondering what they were doing. Then then turned in line with me and got on it, so I stayed on it thinking they wanted to race (they always do)

What if the jet ski had a mechnical failure?
What if someone on the boat had a heart attack?
What if a rock dropped from the sky and killed us all?


Here is a secret, every single time you start your boat you are putting others and yourself at finanacial risk.

That ski came to me, I don't care what side they were on. I had 5 people on my boat and witnesses on shore. I was on a way to a friends house, in the back of the lake. Earlier that day they were chased down (and passed) by the same ski.

Lastly, had their been an accident this video would not exist

Well said, while there are things I could have did different, and will in the future (this scared the crap out of me) but I will be damned if I am going to take full responsibility for it.