Sutphen flips jumping a wake
 

Been posted many times. Very bad driver errror.

Should read - "Idiot flips" instead of "Sutphen flips".

Not the Sutphens fault.


UD

I hope the idiot didn't hurt any passengers.

People on the boat did get hurt

You wanna jump waves buy a jet ski and do it by yourself. Shmuck

I am gonna jump in here and say that I have spoken with the owner of that sutphen. although I dont know him well. I do know he doesnt seem like the kind of guy who tried to hurt anyone.


driver error or not It wasnt intentional.

I have seen alot of guys jump boats wakes and I have seen guys get into situations that were out of control and most just get lucky and learn from it.

Lets not slam the poor guy.

Theres really not that much info out there on how to properly handle a performance boat.
I know I have posted questions and very rarely got answers.
Only thru the years of driving and a few tips do I have info and I still have ALOT to learn.

I am sure no one on here has ever been to the edge with thier boat.:rolleyes:

That driver actually put together a pretty successful career throttling/driving some pretty quick boats.

So what caused the boat to land on the transom like that? Trimmed out too much when he hit the wake. It is a very disturbing video for sure.

I'll take a stab at it (maybe the Pros will chime in).

If I had to choose one thing, I'd say excessive speed. But contributing factors would include being over trimmed so the bow came up high and, it kind-of looks like he hit the wake at a slight angle.

In a thread somewhere said he was doing about 70mph. To me it doesn't look like he was going that fast, but I don't know.

Hopefully someone like Tres will chime in and break it down for us.

I would have to say over trimmed and the balance of the boat!!! Speed is not a factor!!! He could have been doing 40mph and would have landed on the transom!!!!

Wrong.

Speed was the single, exclusive factor. Hitting the wake at 20mph would not have produced the same effect, regardless of trim or balance.

to me it looks like he was going about 45 or so. regardless it's to bad. like anything else knowing the limits of your equipment and experience go a long way. i really feel for the guy though. i was clipping across rough seas in my old 28 challenger with twins and lost a drive at 80 plus. not a good deal. i put a good friends wife in the ER with multiple broken ribs etc. i know that was a little different circumstance however i didn't need to be racing another boat at the time either. to this day i will never forget it. that kind of mishap stays with you a long time and i am certain this guy will feel this forever and even perhaps have saved him from a bigger mishap.

Speed only exagerated the real problem. If he was truely in contol that wave could have been taken at a much higher rate of speed. it may have been a rough take off and landing, but not flipped. just my .02

here's my 2 cents. shouldn't be jumping wakes at any speed.

Sorry to see things like this but actually glad they are on video so we can all discuss them and hopefully learn from them. When I owned a 21 footer it was not in the cards, I looked for smooth water. When I got a 27 footer it was a blast and I did it whenever a wave presented itself. In the 36 it's hard in the lakes we boat in to find enough chop to break the hull free much less do what this guy did.

There looks to be many factors here at play but two things stand out to me. I'm guessing the boat is about 28 to 29 feet? A foot is like a mile in a boat when it comes to ride quality and handling. The longer the boat the harder it is to get the bow up like in that video unless you are in very rough conditions.

Add to that the fact this boat is really tail heavy with twins, add a little trim, misjudge the wake and you have a problem. Almost looks like wind may have been a factor also. I think many things came together like the "Perfect Storm".

We can all learn from these crashes.

Driving article
 

I would love to find a DVD or article on how to properly operate a twin screw high performance boat. That thoroughly discussed what not to do. Any how boats wreck.

If anyone knows of a article or DVD please post.

Thanks

If you want to spend a few bux take the Tres Martin school...

Other than some Barge rollers, Nothing on The River will trip that 35 up....:drink:

Very disturbing video.
My guess is he panicked and throttled back. If anyone has ridden motorbikes you'll understand that when doing a wheelie just tapping that front brake stops the gyroscopic effect of the wheel and you drop like a rock!!! Throttling back not only disrupts the propeller gyro but the de-torquing of the engines further disrupts the boats flight geometry.
I feel for the guy.

OMG did I learn that the hard way as a kid... thank God it was before i was doing it on fast street bikes...

throttled back too far? you have to throttle back when you clear the water no?

when I looked back at it, where he was on the throttles didn't make any difference, he caught the wake at an angle and if you look carefuly there is another wake from a different boat it coming from the side that meets the one he is going over right when and where he goes over it - while the front was coming up over the one he was jumping, the hole from the crosswake dropped the ass end... I would think a lot had to do with the poor timing of the crosswake. the boat wouldn't have to be very heavy in the stern or light in the bow... then he was twisted up and the left drive caught before the right and twisted the boat hard the other way over to the right and that was all she wrote.. he might've have goten away with it with a single drive....


bottom line is it was very unfortunate and makes me cringe every time i see it. I don't think it look like the kind of situation most of us would have considered dangereous under the conditions at the time... makes me even more carefully aobut the safety of passengers vs when I'm alone and playing...

I'm not so sure he did not hit the throttles as he hit the wake for a great launch...more than he expected.....

I know the owner of the boat and have talked to him about the crash. Very very cool guy.

I honestly dont remember what the story was but if you email him on you tube and tell him about this thread hell come over here and talk about it.

It would be cool to hear his side of it again.

Just dont bash on him. It was a mistake we all make them his just went really bad.

Its a 31 ft sutphen spirit

If you really watch the video the other boats before him hit the wave before it and then catch the next jump wave with the bow quite a few feet back and launch level.


He catches the jump wave with the very farthest forward part of the bow. This starts the launch much earlier than the other boats and it rides UP the wave making the boats attitude starighter up. The attitude of the boat was determined well before he started climbing the wave. He really didnt have nay chance to correct it.

I cant tell the position of the drives but having them pulled IN may have contributed to the problem stuffing the nose BEFORE the jump wave which caused it to climb in a straight up fashion.

At least thats what I see.

I am a novice though so you guys can chime in and tell e what you see in the video.

If the trimm is set correct it does not matter where u catch a wave !!!

I see an accident. He did nothing wrong other than hit the waves at a high rate of speed at a steep angle. He was almost perpendicular to the wave and I think the crossing wave made the water ramp he hit much higher than the other boats. We all have done things that we regret..........I flew a 25 talon at 110 mph tore the hatch off due to trying to be cool and take the ugly hatch pins off replacing them with hydraulic lifts. The pins were there for a reason to hold the hatch down so it doesn't catch air and make you air borne.

I feel for him and I bet he learned from his experience .I sure did after cleaning my shorts. I did not have passengers.

As someone who has spent many, many years treating a boat like a jet ski ;), what I see in that video is tabs all the way up, and a little too much speed for his settings. His bow gets high enough that his air speed actually created lift on the bow, and his tail being heavy, of course, stalled and dropped - or actually followed the natural arch of the jump. It's a good lesson about picking between two choices when wake jumping - go high, or go fast - unfortunately he did both. You can get the same height he did, going slower - with positive drive trim and tabs up, dropping the throttle right before hitting the wave to drop the bow into the wave, then getting back on it as you go up the wave, but you're gonna be bow high, so the speed must be kept down - to avoid his exact adventure. You can get alot of air this way, but your speed drops way down by the time you land - to avoid trouble. If keeping the speed he did, positve drives may have been ok for getting good air, but you would have to keep the tabs down to some degree, to get a more level flight, without playing with the throttles so much. It's just one of those things that you learn from doing, but getting to know your particular boat's handling is critical - with no-one in the boat, so they don't become victims of your learning curve :). He just got that one wrong that day, as could happen to anyone that enjoys the extremes - and it's very unfortunate for all involved. I'm just glad no-one has any footage of my learning curve :)