Lick This Spun out last night!!!!!
 

WOW all I can say is it was a very odd deal. They left horney Toad last night and went out to the right and then went for a pass with I think it was 4 people on board. They were not going all that fast, looked like 70-80mph, when the rooster tail got high and it looked like spray from the tabs was coming out and WAM the thing spun and stopped. They are all very lucky and I hope that no one got hurt other then haveing to clean out their shorts. Glad I was not on there.

Jon

Sounds like Blow Out to me. Check that X dimension out. Time for a new lower or nose cone.:D :eek:

Donzi: Lick this is a 42? foot skater with #6 drives and big power, they said 1400hp each motor.

That is on hell of a boat to spin out. Do you think it was still Blow Out or did they loose a drive or engine?:confused: Still not a fun trip to say the least. :eek:

Donzi I was hoping to hear from some of the guys on the board that are Cat drivers to see what could have caused something like that at that speed. I could understand at over 100 but they did not look like they were going that fast at all. How about it Nit2Win or Tx2 or any of the other cat guys on the board. What could have happend?

Jon

I'm no expert on cats - but it sounds like a novice was driving and had the tabs down too far and the drives up too high for that speed and they caught a wave and it bow steared.

46' Skater .... and it goes really fast:p :p :p

I too saw him spin out. Earlier another boater had commented that they had just purchased the boat. The owners sure spent enough time showing it off. Had a bunch of eye candy on the hood too. ;) I don't know if they were in the boat when it spun, but I'm guessing yes. If so, then they had more people in the boat than seats. Not the best thing when spinning out. :rolleyes: Anyways, the boat was making a high(er) speed pass in front of the toad. The rooster was tall and short. It almost looked clipped off. He got a bit past the bar when the boat hooked slowly to the left and then spun sharply in it's own length. He rotated almost 270 degrees in a couple of hundred feet. Mind you the boat was 46' long so the forces must of been phenominal. After sitting for a few minuets, he restarted and S L O W L Y left. You could almost see the tail between his legs.

I would guess he dropped a drive
either by accident or trying to MAKE a turn??? God I hope not.
But if he is inexpereinced, very well could have.

Was he slowing down BEFORE the turn, like he was going to??

If he tried to turn he might have just blown out that side.
idid that once in my infancy days with my boat :( Tried to turn too tight. They are not jet skis.
take wide sweeping turns

well as a rigger, i would say if the boat was traveling straight than i would suspect a drive or eng failure. if the boat was turning, probably setup or driver error. drive /eng problem would result in a fast and abrupt spin , while a setup /driver error would come on slower with some time for reactionsand a chance to recover

Still sounds like driver error to me. Tab spray means the tabs were too deep-lifting the stern. High - short rooster tail means too much drive trim. This also brought the skag closer to the surface and out of clean water. The combination of high trim and lowered tabs would cause the stern to lift and loose the little rudder that he had in the water. Any wave acting on the bow could cause this boat to go into a slow uncontrolled spin. If they had broken a drive on a 40+ ft boat I dont believe it would cause a spin at the speeds they were reported going.

Rivergirl this was at Lake of the Ozarks. I am not saying the spray was or was not from tabs, I just know that is what it looks like when you run a V-hull (the only thing I have any experience with) with the tabs in to much. This thing may not even have tabs, don't skaters ussually have a "tunnel tab"?

At any rate Cord saw a slow start into the turn and I saw a kind of fast spin. Hard to know what happend. He was definatly going in a straite line and not turning. As soon as he got the boat running again did take off slow and left in the direction that he was originally headed in. Scarry stuff.

Jon

Let's just guess it was equipment failure for now. No point in bashing the driver without all the facts...:rolleyes: It would be nice if he came on the board to explain what happened....;)

I still say blow out. I am sure he has heard by now that he is a hot topic on the board.

What I remember was the boat starting to change it's angle of attack with the rate of turn increasing until the boat started to spin. The boat just didn't snap and spin. The spin started slowly and then increased exponentially.

Please tell this guy not to wreck this boat. Many people may not realize that catamaran insurance is in jeapordy! No matter what he is paying for insurance all the people under that particular carrier would lose. Since we only have 2 or 3 carriers who are willing to take these boats, another 7 figure loss would have a huge impact on this industry. If he spun this 46 foot cat, he could go over very easily. An enclosed canopy pleasure cat would probably not have oxygen. Has anybody considered how long it would take these people to get out of that cockpit area without drowning? These people are extremely lucky they did not have further incident.

We saw him running yesterday, so I would have to think it was not engine or drive failure. unless they have a lot of spare parts with them.

did any one talk to him yet as to what happened.at 80 or 90 my boat is like its on rails.hard to figure what happened to have it spin like that .

I spoke with the owner today at the public state park launch. He said he was going into a turn about 90mph when the entire skeg of the port side #6 drive broke off. I would imagine they all needed fresh underwear and had to clean the seats!

If that is true (broken skeg at 90 mph starting into a turn) then it was DEFINITELY driver error! He was in the middle of a channel too small and crowded for a turn at that speed, and at dusk too.

It was impressive to see, looked just like a PWC doing a 180, with similar spray.

Don't try this at home, kids.

I would think the skeg got broken as a result of the spin -- not the cause of the spin.

Too Old: Sorry for the confusion. I was refering to the "TURN at 90 mph" where he was. It is plenty wide for 90 mph in a straight line or even following the gentle bend of the lake, but not for a u-turn in a 46 foot cat, IMHO. No, I can't blame a broken skeg on the driver, but we all can blame stupid/dangerous driving on the driver. He was showing off for the crowd (and NONE of us have EVER done that). Went out East beyond view, turned around and did a fly by, trying to dial in his trim (by the changes to the rooster tail), and then the blow out happened. He was in the middle of the channel, and it was near dusk.


And you are close to right, the horny toad is at the 7 mile marker, near the apex of horse shoe bend.

My guess is that the broken skeg didn't cause the spin, it was a result of it.

I told you it was blow out.:D

H2OCowgirl and I was just approching the Horny Toad when Lick This was pulling out. We watched from the water as they ran down the lake a ways, then made a U turn and stepped on it. I to was watching the rooster tail change with trim adjustments as they set up for a flyby. Understand I am only speculating here, but it seemed he was in a perfect straight line when the boat "suddenly" veered hard and spun in a wall of water. I've seen cats make high speed turns, and they didn't look anything like this. If a skeg was broken, I would guess it was a result of the spin. If I was a bettin man, I'd say "somebody" sittin on somebodies lap accidently bumped a shifter into neutral?

Hey Gordo that accident happend out in front of the Horney Toad not in Party cove ;) ;)

Chart I think that there is plenty of room to turn a cat there, especially at that speed. However it is always when you are showing off that this stuff happens and if he said he was trying to make a turn there then he was definatly trying to show off. I would rather see him go by WOT then at 90, there were plenty of boats running that fast that had already gone past.

Jon

A few misc. thoughts:

- It did not look to me that he was going close to 90mph. I think you were being generous Jon, when you suggested 70mph in your first post.

- My experience is in v bottem boats, and ones slower than 90 mph. But even in one of them at wot, I probably would not have tried a u turn there. Keep in mind, he had at most 1/2 the channel to work with as he was middleish at the time. Don't cats require more realestate to turn than v's?

- I did not see the "start of a turn", but I was at water level out on the end of the dock at the time, and others were up at the bar, with a higher view point. I'll defer to them on this.

- Skater must build a heck of a hull to take that abuse and be able to limp off. I hope no one in the boat hurt anything more than their pride.

- How often do skegs break off in the water?

Jon, Fred, I respect both of you and always try to read threads you start, but it seems we are on different sides on this one. I have nothing against speed. (At LOTO about 10 years ago Arneson (sp?) blew by me in his turbine powered Skater at speed for the film crew in the helecopter trying to keep up with him, and it is one of my boating highlights). If in fact Lick This was trying to do a U turn, at highway speeds, in a big cat, that was not trimmed out well, in that location, then I do not think that would be prudent driving. All the evidence I saw suggested poor driving of the boat, followed by a PWC-like 180 that may or may not have been caused by equipment failure. But it was an impressive thing to see.

Rivergirl - for the record it is a flatdeck & canopied 46' Skater with Sterling 1300 HPs. A very reliable source told me it has run a best of approx 155 mph.

Kilokat: I have heard that same speed figure from some one that I also consider knowledgable about the boat. I guess first time out it only went 110-115:eek: :eek: Man set up on those things must be critical!!!!

Chart: I feel it was operator error due to the way the roostertail was all over the place on the pass. From what I have seen at the races they do not run big rooster tails except for when they start off. His came down the way I would expect it to then it went back up, lots of spray from the back of the boat and then a few seconds later they did their best immitation of a top.

The U turn occured well before the spin. When he spun, he was headed in a straight line.

Audiofn - you are correct with both the original speeds and setup being so critical. As everyone on this board is aware, the difference between safe handling and faster speeds is a very fine line when it comes to x-dimension, prop diameters, etc. I suspect this may have been a contributing factor with this weekend's incident at LOTO. Obviously there were many changes made to pickup 40 +- mph since new and handling had to suffer somewhere.

Sounds like it must have been quite a sight. Either way, mechanical failure, girl on the lap hitting neutral, or driver error, Let's all take a moment and thank the boating gods that everybody onboard is still here to talk about it.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by RiverGirl
[B]46' Skater .... twin 1600 sterlings w/ #6 drives... the buz is said to be up to 180mph...inclosed ... five seats, gullwing like doors.....

LICK THIS HAS 1300 STERLINGS, NOT 1600 HP MOTORS!!!STERLING DOESN'T MAKE 1600 HP MOTORS!!!!!!!!!! (I called them) The boat hasn't come close to 180MPH yet...

Thank you for the correction KiloKat.....
I didn't know exactly what Chris has...I have heard sooo
many different descriptions of the boat.
I was making my statement from multiple postings on the board...
I assumed would be accurate. :o

What do I know...I'm just a girl anyway..:rolleyes:

Thank You again, KiloKat.



MJ.;) :D :rolleyes:

So...... This is the "Lick this" boat from California? I wish I would have seen it!
Where was it being kept at?

Was he over at Bob Morgan's?

Where they with you KiloKat? or were they in town to see if they could keep up with you? I dought they could!
We saw your boat at the cove next to the Bud yacht!! Man, what an awsome display of big hardware!!

That boat gets around. I have seen this boat way out here (west). It was claimed that he was doing 165 in the wee hours of the morning on Lake Havsu about a month ago. Past my 27 fever live a row boat.

Heres another thread about this boat........

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forum/sh...threadid=20379

The guy lives in Arizona not California, and as I recall Rivergirl has seen this boat in person close up (according to the pictures she had posted)

Just a couple of comments....
Whether it was driver error or mechanical failure, who cares as long as everyone on board was ok and for that matter this gorgeous boat is ok!:D Everyone has shown off one time or another, it happens. I sure as hell would've been running it fast in front of everyone at the bar and I would enjoy seeing someone running it fast infront of me! So don't knock the guy for driving fast, that's what the boat was built for.

I saw this boat in Havasu at the poker run and he and his crew (friends) seemed to be a very cool bunch. I saw them talking to all the gaukers, answering questions and waving at everyone in the channel as they past. Very mature and cool I thought especially since the owner is in his early to mid 30's.

I have never seen the owner of lickthis on the board, so if anyone knows him or anyone in the boat at the time of the accident, let them know to jump on here and give us a first hand account. Otherwise, everyone was on the outside looking in and we will never know what the deal was.

Tank

I agree w/ Tank!!!!!
 

:) :cool: :)

We seen it Sunday morning moored at Lake Port(I think, the marina right beside salty dog). Then it looked like it running the glaze arm back towards the bridge Monday morning?

Tank I was not trying to slam the guy at all. When I saw him spin all I could think was man I hope everyone is ok. Second I hope the boat is ok. Third was what would cause a boat that has the capabilities that Lick This does to spin as such a "slow" speed. Since I am not at all familiar with cats I hoped to get some ideas as to what may have happened from the guys that do drive them.

Jon