Lawsuit is a waste of time/resources. A little background, both sets of parents are rich (1-3mm homes), the kid being sued has a grandfather worth tens of millions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Divosta). Kid was grounded from his own boat so they took a boat from grandad's dock (not the super rich one). The "go fund" me account swelled to 462K (https://www.gofundme.com/blog/2015/0...a-462k-raised/) yet there is no accounting of how that got spent. Coast guard put on a pretty good search (FL to GA) outside of the family's attempt. I thought the go fund me was insulting considering the wealth of the families involved.

Irony: The grandfather that owned the boat that was taken.......owns a fishing/marine supply store yet the boat didn't have an epirb. My personal thought knowing the inlet, currents......kids got tossed in the water yet could see land/lighthouse and decided to swim for it....outgoing current was like 4 knots (can't swim against that for long) and kids were swept out to sea on day one. If they were loaded with fishing gear/bait/chum then it possibly was in the water/drifted with them which attracts the wrong kind of wildlife....game over.

Bad day, use this as a life lesson not a lawsuit. Both parents lost equally. There was a ruling a few months back that the salvage value of the hull ($500) was the limit that could be sued for.....I believe that was overturned, hence the lawsuit. In FL you only have 2 years to the date of the loss to start suing.

I never had sex at fourteen. :(

Sorry, at 14 did none of that , not even close. Smarter than that and afraid of my dad , he had full control over what I did. My daughter is 13, I get nervous when we`re at the beach and I don`t see her and her brother for 10 minutes. Much less here`s a boat go out and see ya later. That`s just ****ty parenting.
Maybe it`s different in Florida but my kids sure as hell wouldn`t be in that situation. It`s called parenting not hey were friends go out in the Gulf, it`s cool.:rolleyes:

Me and my buddies went out ALL THE TIME as kids and teenagers, our parents encouraged it and even bought us sh!tboxes. This is Long Island Sound, not some rinky lake (not that you can't get in trouble in a small lake). It enriched our lives, made us responsible, taught us how to think and get out of jams, and I wouldn't have traded that for anything, neither would my parents. To this day I think back on all the incredible experiences I had on the water, some good, some scary.

Sorry, but there's nothing wrong here IMO, it's an incredibly unfortunate accident. BTW...we didn't have GPS, cell phones, radar, LORAN or any other gizmo. This lawsuit is just another BS example of the absurdidly litigious society we live in today, nothing will be gained out of it except a measure of revenge.

^^^Couldn't have said it better. I was lucky enough to grow up the same way with a bunch of siblings and a bunch of friends.^^^^^

My nephew is 14 and can drive one end of our lake and back in the dark. This is not an easy feat even during the day. Don't roll your eyes on the lake thing....it's a treacherous place...we are called the granite state for a reason. :)

I trust my life with him in certain circumstances like this. He and his younger brothers are also fantastic snowmobilers and dirt bike riders. I would follow them anytime deep into the woods and mountains...and I have. :)

Many 'kids' have learned more by they are 14 at certain things than many adults ever have.

Add to that, I have a lot of women in my family and they are all real good at driving boats. My mom's 79 and still takes groups out pretty far. My niece is 16 and just got her boating liscense early this summer and is out and about with her friends and girl/guy cousins and friends whom all drive boats too.

People have different learning experiences growing up, therefore one person is not another.

WRONG. Scumbag lawyers will get lots of money.

And this is why we now have the problem with Millennials, you got to let the kids grow up, make mistakes and learn about life.

All good points but keep in mind this trip was a "scheme" by 2 14 year olds to head to the Bahamas.....neither had parental approval and the trip was underfunded, under-equipped and unfortunately planned on a bad weather day. I suspect they figured they would camp on a beach and sell fish/lobsters to tourists! This was an old single engine boat and while it could certainly make it on a nice flat day it is still a 50-60 mile trip across open ocean where lots can go wrong. Remember the pics of the OSO group that went a couple months ago to Bimini and came back with broken windshields, banged up crew.

These kids lived about a mile from the inlet...... Jupiter Inlet Webcam
I would expect they have been fishing, snorkeling and spearfishing that inlet for years so it is essentially their back porch so you could easily see how their familiarity would have given them the confidence to be out there (whether or not it is good or bad parenting is another issue). The lawsuit is going to sling accusations both ways but the fact is neither set of parents knew what their kids were planning to do that day. They fueled up just inside the inlet ($108 or so) clearly indicating they weren't just planning to fish around the inlet.......kids don't do stuff like put "extra fuel" in the boat but rather put in $20 and see how far that takes them.

Hard lesson to learn for those kids.......waste of time trying to prove a point with lawsuits as both parents lost the same thing.