Twin O/B Sonic

I had an incident two years ago in an area of Lake Erie that I brag to everyone that will listen that, "I know like the back of my hand".
I lost one motor and we were headed for home from the north end of Pelee island in the middle of the lake.
It was fogged in so bad that could barely see the bow of my 24' boat (I hate fog).
To make matters worse they were having a Walleye fishing tournament and these lunatics were runnning WFO in this ****!!
I never saw a single boat but heard several that had motors against the limiters!! (scary ****)
I have a Garmin 185 on my boat so I was following previous routes I had taken many, many times through the same area. (east side is surrounded by shoals)
I was trying to stay as close to the shore line (that I could not see) as possible to reduce risk of collision with above screw balls.
About 5 miles into this I hit a freagin shoal!! IN the exact same place I had been over so many times. I could'nt believe it??
I knew it was shallow in this area but still did'nt explain it??
What I had'nt considered was the difference in draft off plane versus on plane!!! (due to being on one motor)
A. it was shallower there than I thought, and was closer in than it looked on my charts.
B.was way lucky all of the previous times instead of smart like I thought.
C. I am not nearly a quick to pass judgement on people for doing what I used to think was purely irresponsible!!

Semper Fi

QUOTE from Lapse of Reason "This guy has over 1000 hours behind the wheel in the bahamas since 1992."

That just shows us that accidents can happen to anyone.

LapseofReason

Yes it was Carlos and Loni's boat, Loni was driving it with his family. He also has a ton of hours in the Bahamas they share a company and boat and most of the time one will fly in and swap with the other. They do very well for them selfs and know what they are doing.

Sunseeker is looking at the boat and a lot of other people, from what Carlos told me they just barely hit the bottom with the rudder and it tore the whole back of the boat off. The props and rudders were fine not a scat ch on them. When it happened they thought they just hit a prop then when the alarms went off and they knew they were in trouble he turned around and ran it up on the sand to keep it from sinking all the way. From what I hear it was a build problem with the way they put the swim platform on the 48 to make it a 50.

Keith

I know the Black Thunder you're talking about. I understand he had a lot of Bravo replacements, probably too much torque maybe. That was a beautiful boat.

LapseofReason

The BT was not a good boat from the start, but most of it was because they wanted the big cockpit and tripps. so they put all of them across the back. It took months to get it to drive right and they had to take the last step out of the boat.

Jamie B.

Man, that sucks. Sounds like the manufacturer and the build process is at fault, so hopefully the owners will not be liable for much.



LOL

super termoli

It is possible that the whole stern section was ripped off when the rudders hit the bottom. A 50 Superhawk is nothing but an I/O Superhawk 48 which has been configured for Trimax. That is to say that the rear platform which supports the Trimax drives has been added. I do not know if they made a whole new mold for the 50 and I honestly doubt it so that whole Trimax-specific stern section is an add-on. Now, if this is properly done, there should be no problems but due to overwhelming demand, Sunseeker is known to have outsourced some of its fiberglass work. Two of companies who were doing this until recently went out of business. So who knows? Maybe they were cutting corners due to financial difficulties. I know there were problems with XS2000 boats where a few of those basically cracked in half and it turned out that those were the outsourced hulls. It's a shame because a Superhawk 50 is a great idea: fantastic cockpit for lounging around and having gin-tonics, loads of cabin space and headroom, mechanical reliability and a good turn of speed. It is lesson that unfortunately has to be learned the hard way: unless you do it yourself, you can never be sure...

Jamie B.

Interesting.

DJD

As the divers were pulling off the mangled $14000 a piece props, the captain of the new 58' Merrit sport fish, which just arrived in Connecticut from a fishing trip in Costa Rica, told me.........
Dave, there are two types of Captains on the water. Those who have hit things.......... and those who are going to!

Love Machine

Glad everyone is ok and that Loni had the mind to beach it on sand. Will be interesting to see how things turn out with Sunseeker and the Ins. co.

Come on warm weather. I'm chomping at the bit to get my Sonic in the water.