About 5-10 minutes from my house... This was very preventable.

http://www.rrecord.com/news1a.asp

Awful-terrible news -

Im trying to figure out how it happened.

my guess is that the passengers blocked the captains view directly ahead.
10 people on a 23ft bowrider is quite a group.


Uncle Dave

Driving way too fast for conditions. If the captain had to drive at all, he should be running no faster than idle no wake speed. Senseless tragedy.

Bad accident......thourough report though!

I get ridden quite hard by the group I boat with for refusing to run after dark. Too me it's just senseless and far too dangerous. Here's a reminder.

Agreed, another avoidable tragedy. So very sad.

I don't run often at night and certainly not far, it's so disorienting with so many lights around.

Night boating CAN be done safely, but it takes more than a good captain and local water knowledge- it takes technology.

Boating/ mostly swimming in the middle of the night at the lake is a huge part of what I like to do.

Nothing like jumping in the middle of an 80 degree lake on a 100 degree night in the full moon at Havasu.

That said- I spent HUGE money on a radar nav system to do this safely and I can "see" not only my relationship to the shoreline on either radar or nav, but more importantly objects at over three miles on horizon like a buoy or a small boat at night. (32 mile radar- range is limited by the height of the antenna and horizon curve more than power)

that said the speed I go is the slowest speed I can get the boat to plane at- any slower and its more dangerous imo.

Idling across a 10 mile gap is ridiculous with modern radar.

Now If I could keep people from hitting me......

Uncle Dave

Very sad. This is probably the worst I've heard of in a while. I'd be surprised if the driver wasn't impaired.

Seems like every year there is a bad night time accident around here (Charlotte). One year, a drunk hit the interstate head-on. Landed on top of a car. In addition to being drunk, he was watching a couple doing the deed on the deck.

When we were out for the fireworks the other night I could not beleive how many people were out with out stern lights or bow lights. I passed a guy on a dark blue kayak when it was almost dark. On the way home after the fireworks I came up on a guy with no stern light on.

It also amazed me how many people had their spot lights on the entire ride home. Don't they realize that KILLS your night vision.

Even with the best radar out there I would not go faster then I can see forward. I would use it more as a defensive tool at night/fog to avoid an oncoming vessle.

I boated for years at night, not so much now. Not only are my eyes about half of what they were way back when, but there are way too many idiots out there nowadays. I generally plane at 19 - 23 mph, stay there on the moonlit nights, slower when darker.

The people boating with no lights on should be jailed for 30 days. Scariest thing I've ever encountered.