Unquestionably, Saturday's mishap at SOTW is a terrible tragedy, especially for the family and friends of those lost and injured. It is tragic ANYTIME a young life is ended so suddenly and seemingly so randomly. The accident, though was not intrinsically a part of the poker run. It was an inadvertent jerk of the wheel that could happen to ANY OF US at ANY TIME, so we should all keep that little yellow caution flag up. Go out there and have a blast, but increase your safelty consciousness as your speed increases. We all knew that something like this is an ever present possibility when boats go fast, especially when a lot of boats go fast at the same time. When we "start 'em up" we're accepting that level of danger as part of the sport. Its actually part of the attraction. We can, though keep these tragedies to a liveable minimum with constant vigilance, education and awareness.
As I said, its ALWAYS a tragedy when young lives are snuffed out. We have 200 posts about this isolated incident. Think about the families of the 2000 young Americans killed in Iraq. And the families and friends of and the 15,000 injured. 40,000 Americans killed in car accidents each year. 20 million children in America who don't have anyplace to sleep and don't know where their next meal is coming from. And, finally all the lives lost and disrupted in the violent struggle for life in America's inner citiies.
Think globally, but act locally. I think the best tribute we can pay to those souls lost is for each of us to try to do one good deed...one selfless act this week. And maybe one next week. And maybe it will get to be a habit. And then, maybe its not all in vain.

NPR overdose!

Good points - sometimes we need to stop and think how lucky and privileged we are to be able to enjoy this hobby. There are a lot of folks out there who will never know what it is to have a carefree weekend on the lake, river or ocean. This is not to take anything away from the tragedy of the lives that were lost.

I wish this was an isolated incident. Unfortunately, high speed spinouts and hooks are becoming very commonplace as people learn the limits of hyper fast boats the hard way and manufacturers push these same limits to get bragging rights for a month until the next beast hits the water and goes for the record.

People don't have to die to do this. We should do this as decent human beings whether we ever had a boat or ever heard of a tragic sudden loss.


And just for the record... no matter what anybody does... to the families of the lost... they were lost in vain.

does any one kno where i can get pics of that boat before the crash.....