Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

sorry to all those involved. i read all seven pages here about all the theories of the boat breaking but not one comment at all about not where wearing life jackets.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

Perhaps no one wanted to be the first to say "I told you so !!!"

Jackets have been suggested countless times on this board, that it really should just be common sense by now.

A jacket can be given as a gift, but there is no way to make the person wear it... They need to do that on their own....

God bless them all......

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

atleast the kids should be wearing them

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

No doubt.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

Agreed!

That's the law isn't it ?

Up to what age I'm not sure....

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

I usally want let any kids ride in my boat ,you just never know, even if someone else even runs into you,Everybody is so suit happy:(

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

12 here.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

We all talk about life jackets, and then most leave them off. My wife makes me wear mine, and i feel like a dork sometimes , but reading things like this makes me want to wear it next time. weather it would have helped here who knows?

On a side note I for one am sick and tired of the florida powerboat club making videos like the one that is posted on oso today. Complete disrespect for safety in this video and many others i have seen from them.:( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGk5H...elated&search=

It is best of 2005 so hopefuly things have changed.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

Would it matter what angle a boat hit a wave? Instead of submarining,slaping it or hitting it mid section?

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

I was gonna say on the first page but didn't think it would be well-received...

you just don't know where a used boats' been before
the impacts it has seen
and accumulated structural damage and stresses aren't always apparent

these things do have a lifespan, both the ingredients and the constuction...

I think like most incidents in the end it will be determined to be a combination of things, never knowing the primary.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

Not if the boat is over 26' in length, but it should be.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

I think this thread is starting to loose face of the real reason it was posted. yzbert...if you dont like the Florida powerboat club video dont watch it. this thread is about the death of fellow boaters not to judge or discuss life jacket saftey or talk about videos, or analize the crash or water depth. If these other subjects need discussion lets start new threads.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

New York Law
12 yrs old when boat is under way

I make my kids where them all the time. Ages 7 and 12.
My wife won't let me go in the ocean with the kids anyway.
And she keeps a careful eye on the speedo. 50 mph and she is all over my butt about slowing down.
I wear mine on the "Fun Runs" but not on a regular day out.

And Yes Fountainracing42 we are getting off track. Sorry



MY CONDOLENCES TO THE FAMILIES INVOLVED IN THIS INCIDENT.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

it is common knowledge if you are messing around or running high speeds jackets and tethers should be worn. We all hate to see news like this but these things are going to happen sometimes they just don't have to be soooooo damn often.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

That was Art Lilly's boat and it had little pieces of coral in the nose :eek: after the wreck. 30 plus foot boat, high angle of attack after a trip and you can make it to the bottom.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

Maybe but probably not much. The boat's momentum (stored energy) is still along the axis it is travelling on- parallel to the water. When airborne, gravity causes the boat to travel in a parabolic arc downward. If something causes the bow to drop (or more correctly, the stern to rise) that energy is directed downward and into the water. If it's just a situation where you land flat, you're still nose-first into the backside of the next wave. I've not seen every stuff that's ever happened but the one's that I have (in V-bottom boats) are pretty much straight-ins. There's too much buoyancy to submerge going in any other direction, even if some freak occurrence put you in that position. Other than a certain Formula 1 driver that stuffed stern-first. There's an Apache 41 race video floating around the net that shows Warpath sticking the nose in pretty hard and popping right up- that's an example of buoyancy overcoming a boat's desire to submarine. However, if the nose had broken off, we'd have a completely different story.

I can't say that I recall a partial stuff that caused a v-bottom boat to hook. possibly with raceboats in hard turns in rough water- those are usually thought of more as spins. Of course, many cats have had partial stuffs where they catch just one sponson- both straight and turning. That introduces an entirely different set of dynamics.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

I remember that.................

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

Some of those shots were low speed ICW runs at less than 30 MPH. If you want to wear your lifejacket then do so. IT IS NOT ILLEGAL TO ENJOY YOUR BOAT WITHOUT THEM. Do you go to Bike Week and preach about the validity of helmets? Your concerns with safety pretty much end with yourself and your guests on your boat not everyone else out there but it is funny you thought the SCOPE pics on another thread showing a Baja 4 feet in the air was cool yet not all the passengers were wearing jackets. Did you get slighted in the past by FPC which is why you are disapproving of their videos?

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

Chris you bring up very good points.
May I add, all the weight is in the aft of the boat, once the nose starts heading down, the inertia of that weight is going to raise the aft further, and send the bow down - isn't this essentially what happens in a "trip", just that it happens very quickly. Kind of like a hammer hitting a nail.
I apologize if this offends anyone, but I this was not started as a memorial thread. And I think there is too much information here to want to close this thread, or move this discussion elsewhere.
If you wish to start a memorial thread, please do. I would feel awkward starting one, as I didn't personally know any of the victims involved, I feel it is not my place.
I do however feel awful for the families involved, and my prayers are with them.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

god bless ...tragic...

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

I agree with yzbert on this one.
I started to give a further explantion as to why, but deleted it. This thread isn't the to place to put this conversation

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

Yes

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

yes it was kw 94 I wae there...:(

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

I agree this isn't the thread to discuss as well.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

I just want to send my condolances and prayers to everyone involved in this horrable insident. Very sad.
Of cource I'm very interested to find out what happened to this boat sence I have a 02 33 Powerplay with 496HO's. I think there is an awful lot of simularitys to the Pepe's accedent. Allthough that boat had been re-rigged after it left Powerplay (lightend and balist tanks moved forward) it seems to be the same type of damage. High speed. ocean swells and shallow water ( 10' to 12' ). Trip the boat and stuff the nose into the bottom while the back of the boat goes over at 70,80,90mph and you have this kind of catastrophy. I've looked at several PP's and never seen as much as a spyder crack in one, if there was a crack in that boat I couldn't imagine what it took to do that. Who knows. I just hope they find out the exact cause.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

I dont think you should be required to wear a lifejacket it is personal choice and is not the law. I also do not think the FPC should promote people riding on the sunpad, which I dont believe is legal. the one at 1:30 iam sorry but looks to me to be over 30 mph.

I agree this is not the thread to discuss this and i will drop it, but just to let you know i just got done reading about this tragedy and then clicked on that link. Did not sit well with me.

As I said before by the looks of that boat not sure lifejackets would made a difference, and ironically i think the safest place to be riding my have been the sunpad.

My heart goes out to the families.:(

scott eaton

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

Same here as another 33 PP owner.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

What makes you feel like you know the reason the thread was started, all I read in the first post was "not looking good" and a link to the article. That sounds pretty open ended to me. Four people died out there and not only is it an extremely sad sad tradegey it's also a mystery because there was no crash, no bad weather, no high speed cat flip. This could have been any one of us out there having fun and hoping a few waves. Hell I have been on a ton of poker runs with older boats 8' feet or so shorter in huge waves and they came back in one piece. Of course people wonder what happend and since this is Offshore Only, not the funeral home, why shouldn't people be allowed to discuss it. I sometimes think there are more experts here than the so called ones the insurance companies call in.

Life vests are great and I have even sent letters to the mags about it, but they don't always save lives, sometimes they just make it easier to recover. I hope we find out what happened and that is probably something that the grieving father and sister wants to know as well.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

Is there a "life" span for the fiberglass? Does it get weaker after a certain period? Are boats not as safe a certain number of years?

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

They found the 4th victim.

Boater's body found off Marco Island


MARCO ISLAND — The body of a 20-year-old man, the fourth person killed in a boating crash, has been recovered, authorities said.

The Collier County Sheriff’s Dive Team found James Molter’s body in about 20 feet of water just after 1 p.m. Monday, said Dani Moschella of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Also killed in Saturday’s crash were Molters mother, Linda Molter, 42; his sister Meagan, 22; and Meagan's fiance, Harper Simpson, 31.

The sole survivor was 16-year-old Jennifer Molter. She was treated for a hip injury and bruises at Naples Community Hospital and released Saturday.

The 30-foot boat did not collide with another boat or hit a fix object. The crash probably occurred when the boat hit the water the wrong way, wildlife commission’s Lt. Roy Payne said. About 80 percent of the boat has been retrieved and will be reconstructed by wildlife commission investigators to study the dynamics of the crash.

The boat belonged to Simpson, who bought the vessel about four weeks ago.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

my condolences to the famlies :(

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbc.../70109004/1086

Very sad!

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

Thoughts and prayers to all those involved

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

I can tell you first hand that Stu runs a tight ship. Not only have I seen him chew people out for running in a dangerous manner, I have seen plenty of people get tossed out of the club for not following safety rules. Stu can't follow every boat during a run & police their activities. That is up to the person running the boat and in the end, the person who is responsible for anything that might happen.
Wear your jackets people! You might be the best captain in the world but the worst one might be right beside you.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

Nice post! :)

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

Talked to a member of the recovery team the other day:
Water depth - 20 feet
Tabs - down all the way
Trim - negative, tucked all the way in
Location - 3.8 miles from the cut or .8 mile offshore

Just an FYI

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

If it was an outgoing tide the wreckage might have been recovered in much deeper water than the incident occured in.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

No material is "fatigue-proof", FRP being no exception. The big issues are construction quality and the previous stresses imparted to the object." 20 years ago, before some of the big advances in materials and construction techniques, raceboats were just laid up light. It was known that they wouldn't last long- they were built knowing that after x number of races, they'd be used up. On the other hand, you had boats that are still legendary for their durability. Take Cigarette- Don didn't want to deal with customers coming back whining about broken boats. He also wanted the reputation of Cigarette to be that of an unbreakable superboat- playing into the whole mystique of the brand. This opened the door for Reggie and others who knew they could make their boats faster by making them lighter. It also made them more susceptible to damage. Now we have materials unimaginable 20 years ago- but you still have manufacturers competing on a very level playing field. There are few secrets in boat design and construction. (like the magic 24 degree bottom). So what's left? Autoclave cured carbon boats like Tencara? SOTA construction like Skater? Making the boats lighter? The first two are fine for big-dollar raceboats. The third is what's left for someone who wants to build more than two boats a year.

As far as fatigue, fiberglass is a very forgiving material- especially in a well-engineered boat. It also gives plenty of telltale signs of fatigue. Unlike steel and many other metals which can develop microscopic fissure and all at once fail, FRP will usually show signs of over-stress prior to failure. As an aside, when Kevlar first hit the market, it got a bad rap for being less forgiving than FRP. I didn't give off the same tell-tale signs of impending failure. That of course has been proven over the years to be BS. There were some isolated incidents of broken raceboats but lamination schedules and inexperience with the material were the true culprits.

In the end, having a boat professionally surveyed before purchase and subsequently having it examined by a qualified pro on a regular basis makes absolute sense. In the Powerplay mishap, it seems to be a recent purchase that was showing outward signs of distress. Problem is, many times what you need to look at in a performance boat is covered up by a cockpit/cabin liner and lots of luxury stuff that can't easily be removed.

In short, if you're dealing with a well-made boat that has not been stressed multiple times close to its yield point, it should have a fairly long lifespan. If it has been pushed hard, there will definitely be telltale signs. The older resins can deteriorate over decades- if your intention is to run very hard in big water, an older boat most likely is not a good choice.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

Thanks for that post Sunkin- very insightful.

Re: Boat Crash off Marco Island Today
 

I was afraid of that with 3 weeks of seat time...