LKNCOBALT

The most uncomfortable debates are presented in this discussion.

1. Are big cats with mega power too dangerous for their own good?
2. Boating and drinking, a recipe for disaster?

The community of speed boaters hate to be presented these questions, because we hate the answers.

Funny thing is everything that has been stated contends to be valid points.

But take our knowledge and experience and set it aside for a second. Let me put some North Carolina country boy logic out there for a second....

If I took some people I know, that don't know our sport, walked them around a 44 foot MTI cat sitting sideways on a trailer, told them the horsepower, weight, and speed capabilities, then told them that boat was going out on a lake, on the busiest weekend of the year, at early evening, heavy boat traffic, doing over 100 mph with both driver and passenger intoxicated to double the legal limit.... well they would say that sounds like a damn disaster waiting to happen.

Bad day of all the wrong things coming into play.

RollWithIt

Figured I would add my little 2 cents to this debate. Hearing about this incident I think we can all agree that alcohol was at the least a contributing factor. Anytime it is in somebody's system it will always be a contributing factor as there is plenty of proven scientific evidence that reaction times are slowed along with poor decision making. Even without the introduction of alcohol into somebody's body, the speeds these boats go are very dangerous. I'll try to break it down in numbers..

Most accident re-constructionists list the average reaction time as 1.5 seconds. That is from the time you notice something and can react to it.
Average reaction time (in a car) to hit the brakes is 2.3 seconds. Doesn't sound too long....

At 100 miles per hour (to keep the math simple) a boat or car is traveling 146.667 feet per second. In 1.5 seconds, you will travel 219 feet. 2.3 seconds and you have gone 335.8 feet...

Even when sober, you can see how quickly a situation can get out of hand for even an experienced operator. The faster a boat is traveling, the less time you have to react and correct the action. A 44 foot boat travels 7.6 times its length in 2.3 seconds. Roughly the time you would react and affect a change to the controls.

As anybody who has taken Tres Martin's driver's course will attest he emphasizes simply slowing down greatly increases your odds of survival. The slower speed allows greater control.

Be safe everybody. I do not want to read anymore articles like this for a loooooong time.

MIskier

You are correct for the most part...99.9% of boats are designed through experience and real world experience, this includes those that are designed using CAD software. CFD is a whole different segment of computer aided engineering from simply drawing the boat in CAD so that it can be milled. CFD especially when it comes to stepped hulls and wing in ground effect (Cats) becomes incredibly complex and expensive due to the multi-phase flow that has to be modeled to accurately represent the mixing of air and water around steps, having the experience in modeling these situations further limit the sources available to carry out the testing.

Even more limiting is creating accurate models that include sea state, there are only 2 or 3 sources in the US for this kind of modeling and the cost is prohibitive for anything other than government projects.

The only high performance boats that I know of off hand that were designed using CFD are the Phenomenon, an example of how not knowing how to properly model something can result in poor results, some of the later Tencara boats, and the newer Ocke Mannerfelt cats. Other high performance boats such as Destriaro, and the bat boats were shaped in part in a wind tunnel.

By in large the cost of high end computer modeling of sea keeping is far to cost prohibitive for performance boat builders to be able to absord into the development of a new model. It is very easy to rack up a six figure bill when doing this type of work.

Jupiter Sunsation

Today's boats are more efficient designs (lighter, faster even before adding the huge HP stock Mercury powerplants).....all factors moving them closer to flight capabilities.
2 minute mark shows what happens when you mix speed, skill and luck!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i4qlJk00XY

speicher lane

That was HEAVY on the luck... driver should have gotten out and bought a power ball ticket after he changed his underwear.

Jupiter Sunsation

That was OSO member Steve David. He has retired after a long racing career, super nice guy I met him at a poker run once.

http://thunderboats.ning.com/page/the-steve-david-story

speicher lane

its the old racer's adage - anything you can walk away from is a good day!

That vid clip he can show his great,great, great grandkid's

sprsptr

CLUELESS here, Sorry it still hurts when folks die doing something they love.

sprsptr

CLUELESS here, The assumption that it is all " hit and miss" or "trial and error" scares me and seems reckless! So boys and girls, we are all spending big money to be test dummies for manufacturers that do no engineering, and wait for a fatal accident, (alcohol related or not) to determine faulty or unsafe capabilities and make design changes hoping for the best. Maybe the government should regulate this stuff, no 20K automobile producer would get away with this level of perceived apathy, but million dollar hyper boat companies can wantonly consume wealthy individuals without accountability. PLEASE!

44MTI

I understand people wanting to know what happened, for many different reasons. I probably wanted to know as badly as anyone since this was one of best friends and was I suppose to be on the boat that day. There have been alot of really good points raised, I especially like the ones about all the accidents where there were no alcohol involved. Richie was a very experience driver and was not pushing the boat when this happened. Accidents happen and these two men have paid the ultimate price. Obviously alot of factors came together at a very bad time to make this happen and there certainly is not one single think we can blame this on. And people trying to do that is only going to cause more pain. Please remember Richie left a wonderful wife and 2 young kids who do look at this site. They are a still hurting from this as many of us are. So please think of them when you are posting and put yourself in their spot and don't post anything you wouldn't want your kids to read if the rolls were reversed.