38 Lightning Flips on Winni
 

On Saturday, a 38 Lightning flipped with 6 POB. Everyone walked away :) Must have been one scary ride. Boat only had 3 hours on it! Here's something from the Citizen:

Marc Brewster, 29, of 2 Damon Drive in Alton was driving the brand new 36-foot Fountain speed boat that had just three hours on the meter in a southeasterly direction, when it overturned.

All six occupants were ejected into the water, and sustained minor injuries.

Nearby boaters assisted the occupants in getting to shore. All six were treated by emergency medical personnel at the scene. One of the passengers was taken to Lakes Region General Hospital in Laconia as a precautionary measure, Sgt. McLain said.

The new boat ended up swamped in shallow water. The stern of the boat was resting on the lake bottom, with the bow sticking up. The owner was able to make arrangements to have it salvaged.

Authorities are still attempting to determine what caused the boat to overturn.

Alcohol was not a factor in the incident, according to McLain.

None of the occupants were wearing life vests when they were thrown into the water. At the time of the accident, the lake was busy with weekend traffic and the combination of wind and boats had created a light chop, authorities report.

Both the Alton Fire-Rescue and Wolfeboro Fire-Rescue assisted at the scene.

Couple more pics

last one

It's always the Fountains.....:p :D :eek:

:eek: :eek: :eek:

Ouch!! Glad everyone is OK. Maybe the beak caught a wave and flipped it.:D

Oh, BTW. That's a BEAUTIFUL lake. I'll definately make a point of checking it out.

Damn. That sucks. Glad all were okay!

That time of year again...Seems almost weekly now, maybe more. :(

Ouch!
 

Glad everyone is OK.

Did that transom rip off during the salvage?

Maybe pilot error or did something in the steering let go?

That same old scenerio where money buys the big fast stuff and put it in the hands of inexperience and this is what happens!!!!

" the brand new 36-foot Fountain speed boat "

I guess the Citizen measured the boat after the swim platform came off the 38' fountain!

I'm glad everyone made it. :)

I'm surprised that there aren't a bunch of people in here bashing the hell out of Fountains already. If it were a Cig the thread would be 4 pages long already. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Not to sound ignorant but I have often wondered is it that easy to flip over a v hull. Could someone give me some honest experiences so I can be a little more certain about running my boat. I've had a few times when my bow aired out pretty high but I just assumed it wouldn't come over. What causes a roll in a Vee is it a combo of a bad wave, over trim, too much throttle, wind?? are only certain Vee hull balanced capable of flipping over (given that your not in 10 foot sees.)Not to sound stupid but I've always sort of wondered. Please educate me on this matter. Maybe I am missunderstanding what happened also I'm thinking of flipping over backwards not barrel rolling. Thanks

I am glad to hear everybody is ok.

Sounds like the guy was fooling around and paid dearly. People have reported that the guy was attempting "power turns" and "slides" like a flat bottom Ski Nautique boat with his twin step hull.
Here's a link to the thread on winni.com with more pictures:
http://www.winnipesaukeeforum.com/in...cgi?read=57562

I would love to know if this guy had any clue as to what he was doing. S**t like this doesnt just happen without acting recklessly.

Well..as stated above, Stepped hulls are much easier to spin out and barrel roll, even at slow speeds. But I doubt, by the looks of the boat this guy was running slow. I dont like to speculate or even accuse someone of using poor judgement, but it certainly appears that this person was in need of HP boat education. Especially stepped hulls.

anyway, Im glad no one was seriously injured. Thats the most important thing. Hell of a wake up call though.

ON THE Velocity WEBSITE IT IS SAID THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN IN ONE OF THERE BOATS.. LOL :D

Just Once,

There are many ways to flip a vee-bottom as there is many ways to flip a cat especially a vee bottom with steps . When a vee has steps it turns much differently than a conventional vee bottom and cat. For instance, if you trim the drives in and turn hard, a stepped vee will inherently have a tendancy to slide and spin as it transfers the balance point far foreward and consequently raises the stern and spins out. This is simply one scenario and many others may arise. I hope this helps.

Hey I'm with you. Just have about 3 months experience in my boat and do not want to have something similar happen. I've been careful since getting it, but feeling a little braver now. Just don't want to be caught off guard by something that I should have known better.

Well, most educated high performance boaters would do just that. Get the feel of the boat. Know what it can/cant do. You certainly dont want to go from a conventional V to a stepped V and make high speed turns the same way. Some people just dont realize that and then all hell breaks loose. I think dealers should be very specific when they sell these boat to people. Stepped hulls are much faster than Conventional Vs but they can also be more dangerous if not operated with care and knowledge.

Shane Thank you, I am O.k. with the turning and drive trim on steps and non steps. I was kinda more refering to flipping it backwards like a blow over in a cat. Any input there?

Just once...
It can happen. not quite as easy as a cat. but it can happen
Very High Speed.. trimmed to the sky. Launch off a wave.
Especially with a empty hull (no cabin)

This isn't a velocity smarty pants. The reason Velocity says that is because THEY DON'T STEP THEIR HULLS, NOTICE THE STEPS IN THE HULL OF THE FOUNTAIN!

How cocky and brilliant do you feel now?

Good point:eureka: :eureka: :eureka:

That is extremely well said. Dealers need to step in and TELL, not ask, their new owners to sit and watch while they show the proper way to drive the new stepped technology. :)

Well according to the Winni site it was a "Cigarette" not a Fountain.

Those guys are clueless

You would have to be blind to not see that it's a Fountain. The people on that site are clueless.

If that can be proved, sounds like wreckless endangerment and a major lawsuit.

Here is a scary quote from one of the posters...

"With a boat with stepped hull like that in turns you can easily flip it if the drives arent trimmed correctly. Drives must go in on a turn and out on a straightaway. Otherwise over she goes. So were gonna call this one off to operator error, I highly doubt this fountain could have been fatigued and made it through their testing at the factory. "
Will

Note the part about how to trim a stepped boat in turns...
this guy is a real expert!! I sure hope he doesn't have a stepped hull!!
:rolleyes:

What a dumbass!

I thought exactly the same thing - another "internet expert" :rolleyes:

Lack of experience + stepped bottom = people getting hurt !!!!

Nuff said.

kinda interesting how the swimplatform ripped right off the transom.

WOW, Glad to see everyone is OK, owner is going to salvage, F*%^ that 3 hours, turn it into the insurance.

Also is it common to want to do really powerful turns on purpose???? Chit I try to avoid hard turns unless avoiding PWC or other idiot?

WILL:rolleyes:

Big jake what do you have?

Riddle me this... WTF was that idiot doing by going fast enough to turn the boat over THAT close to shore in THAT shallow of water? I want some intel. I bet he just got off of PWC.

I was thinking the same thing. It looks like it was in a cove almost.

Obviously hard to see from the pics but it does look like atleast one drive was tucked in :eek:

Thank you...I thought I was the only one who noticed this.

:rolleyes:

My uninformed guess is the boat was in a relatively high speed power turn, did a 180 which resulted in the boat travelling backwards. Swim platform dug in, front of boat came up, ejected people out back (relatively safely) and swamped immediately... no barrel roll. Ripped off platform in process.

I by the way trim my drives in if doing a power turn and trim out when staightened away again. I must be missing something here ... :confused: Trimming out in a turn would be operator error or at least bad judgement if it resulted in a spin.

BT :cool:

I had to set them strate on the whole step bottom issue...looks like the tabs are way above neutral.