Boating accident on the Ohio River
 

Person has been found

That's terrible. Prayers for all involved.

Early word from witnesses is that the cat lost a drive and turned sharply. Terrible. Prayers.

Is there any update on this?

Man Killed In Boating Accident on Ohio River in Maysville - LEX18.com | Continuous News and StormTracker Weather


trying to post a link from my phone. Hope it works.

I'll withhold commenting further.

There is a lot of speculation on this accident on another forum. Does losing a drive cause a boat to veer violently? Wouldn't the other drive still be straight with a proper steering set-up?

edit: Sorry. Didn't mean to sound cold. Sad that a life was lost. Just trying to understand and learn from this.

From eyewitnesses on Facebook and from a family member of the owner of the cat involved in the accident, this is what people there say happened.

The cat was heading down river at high speed when it lost a drive, hooked and dumped the occupants into the river. The driver of the cat wasn't wearing his lanyard and the cat was circling the occupants who were in the water. A pontoon boat lent assistance to try to prevent the people in the water from being run over by the cat. The driver-less cat ran on top of the pontoon as it was circling and seriously injured the leg of the pontoon driver. As of last night a family member of the pontoon driver said he was scheduled to have his leg amputated today. A passenger in the cat (a relative of the driver) was missing after the incident and divers later found him but he is deceased.

Again, this is all from various threads on FB but the info is coming from people who say they are the family members and friends of those involved. The irony of it all is that the owner of the cat was the event organizer who put on the event to benefit another boater in need.


Prayers for everybody

I just don't know what to say to that!

First off, yes , another tragic accident that made me shudder just reading about it . My sincerest condolences to those lost and their family and friends .

As for your question , the further the props are apart the more difficult it becomes to control a boat if you loose power to one side. Have you ever driven any large twin engined inboards ?
I've been on a few that were barely steerable with only one engine due to engine location and distance from the props and others that no matter what you did they'd only go in circles , and that was with the dead side freewheeling the prop .
On a cat hull this would no doubt be even more pronounced as you don't just have 2 props a fair distance apart but you have 2 separate hulls as well . Once this boat lost it's outdrive even if the driver had remained in the boat and at the helm he'd probably still have the boat only go in the opposite direction with the wheel hard over .