Wheel in the hand , water in the mouth !

You do realize that 75% of the boating public would think that 75MPH on the water, around other boats, wave runners and people is reckless? And even though a girl was showing off and god forbid got killed they'd all be crying that you needed to "go to jail for a very long time" and "rot in jail", alcohol or not?

Just some food for thought.

Yes, you are 100% right. and god forbid she got hit.. the article would have read.. "speed was a factor in the crash". I don't think anyone here is naive enough to think that we have all of that horsepower and rigging to cruise at 25 mph and many of the people here might read my post and be smirking to themselves "only 75". I am always looking around me and adjusting for conditions, traffic, etc and in this case, I was in a marked channel with what I thought was miles between me and other boats... miss JetSki came out from behind a bridge piling out of nowhere and cut across my bow about 100 yards ahead which required evasive action on my part because she had no clue I was even there... it wasn't until she got the splash from the rooster that she realized she had a boat that close to her. and you're right, most people would think that speed is reckless, but my point was/is that I was operating my boat well within my own capabilities with what I thought was a wide margin of error and then unexpected stuff happens... and because I was not impaired in any way, my reaction was crisp and everyone went home that day..

75 IS fast on the water, an overwhelming number of boats don't get close to that speed. Just because a Skater or Outer Limits boats do twice that speed doesn't mean that you're not hauling ass at 75. Most of the highways in the country don't allow cars to go that fast, not to mention the unpredictable nature of the water.

This is exactly what I was trying to say in my earlier post. We are held to a higher standard because most of us a fast, loud and flashy. The public wants justice for the dead or injured, even though it could be the injured's fault. Much like the Jet ski incident, if you would have hit that girl you would have been at fault because you were going to fast for conditions... Then people would have been calling for you to go to jail, alcohol or no. i'm not condoning drunk boat operation. Just that we are all human and that everyone makes mistakes.
If this thread got bought up on the local news, it would read "boaters call for death sentence" we have all judged this man on a matter of a few facts.

http://www.uscgboating.org/assets/1/...12ReportR2.pdf
Page 7
TOP TEN KNOWN PRIMARY CONTRIBUTING FACTORS OF ACCIDENTS
operator inattention and experience rank #1&2, alcohol is #7 and excessive speed is #5.
I for one will admit that that sometimes I have caught myself going to fast for rapidly changing conditions, or looking down to change the song on the stereo.
Lets not make this man out to be a criminal, instead look at the contributing factors that lead up to the incident. He had the numbers against him so there for he hit #2,5,6,7 and possibly #1 in the leading causes of accidents.
We can all take notes from this accident, we are all guilty of something. Don't just stand on a soap box because alcohol was involved

And don't forget all the drunk boat operators and passengers get in a car and drive home drunk.

I don't disagree with anything you are saying. Bad things happen and could happen to anyone. You could hit someone or get hit by someone doing 20 mph... who hasn't seen an accident at the dock, for godsakes? We're not going to agree about the alcohol part but that's cool; everyone is entitled to their own opinion. You're right, there is something for all of us to learn from this... I will step down now...

I'm with you on the alcohol thing! And I am almost certain everyone in this discussion is as well.

Just a quick update I found this morning.

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2014/08/...ology-results/

Thats some what disturbing, I hope they have tracker on him.