Bass Boat Crash

[BuckMaxx]

This video makes me just sick to my stomach. I recently had an incident when my boat came completely out of the water. Thankfully I have a hotfoot or I may have been in this same situation. I also have quit wearing my Mustang and went back to a old school live vest for the extra padding and security. Scary stuff!

[Brian Needham]

why would someone cross other boat wakes that fast?

maybe I am just a pansy and way to cautious. but I don't think there is such a thing as way too cautious on the water, IMO.

[DelcoSol]

why would someone cross other boat wakes that fast?

maybe I am just a pansy and way to cautious. but I don't think there is such a thing as way too cautious on the water, IMO.

That was the first thing that I thought.

[Sam]

Things happen on the water in a blink of an eye.

 

I slow down to transverse wakes and am very careful not to throw a heavy wake around other boaters and shoreline property.

 

You do have the self-centered guys out there who could care less how they operate their boat. It is there boat so get out of their way.

 

That accident in New York is upsetting. What a total waste of human life. A life that was excited about getting married in two weeks.

 

I hope they put the driver of that boat in jail for life.

[Traveler2586]

I spoke about Bass Boat operation several times in the past; in fact Kim Stricker put a segment on how to handle a Bass Boat in one of his Hook N' Look shows due to my comment on his FB page.

 

I have never seen or heard of any kind of Bass Boat safe operation course offered anywhere; people, like me, just buy a boat (usually with as much power as they can afford) get in and take off.  I have had several Coast Guard safe boating classes, but none address Bass boat operation; they were mainly navigation oriented.  Knowing that we can't engineer away stupidity, we can post more "lessons learned" information here and elsewhere. So keep up the good work.

 

As for the tragic NY accident, wittinesses out boating that night said the barge was not lit with marker (anchor) lights and it was a dark night.  We had a similar accident here on the Potomac when someone drove directly into the side of a barge at night; it was not required to have anchor lights either. 

If you ever saw one of these barges at night you know their rusting hulls don't reflect light and they are very difficult to see. IMHO, I believe these things should have anchor lights fore, aft, and mid-section when moored in open water.

[Brian Needham]

Good on you Traveler!

how in the $Q&^&$^* are barges not required to have lights?

That is sad for the people involved in the accident yall are talking about.

 

of course down here on the Mississippi you never really see one not running a HUGE spot light.

 

 

I know when I got my boat I was scared to death, 35mph  and no trim felt like light speed, lol.

I guess I always been scared to die to do stupid stuff.

[Kevin22]

Where was the barge captain when it happened? Here on the Miss river they anchor to overnight all the time, but there is always someone on watch. They do have the normal running lights on the front and a light on top of the tug but that is it. When we take off to go duck hunting at 2-3am there are usually a couple anchored in the river. However as soon as they see our running lights going towards them they whip out that huge spotlight and shine it right at us. Its enough to stop you in your tracks, as you are seeing spots for the next 10 minutes... but it keeps you safe. 

[BuckMaxx]

That's exactly why I posted this video. I am sure it has been on the net for awhile but I had not seen it.

So many things can happen. There are wake board boats that throw a 4' roller off the back, that can travel for a long ways. That's what got me. The antics of those cowboys that are new boat owners make me cringe. The jetskiers are the onae that will get someone in trouble. They are like bees flying around a popcan.I have seen all this stuff while on the water and it can happen to anyone. Out here we have 45 mph speed limit and have to travel our lakes in a counter-clockwise travel. Which makes the center of the lake very very rough. There are times when you can hardly keep your boat on plane without feeling like you are in a wash machine.

Bottom line is..it CAN happen to anyone.

[Traveler2586]

Good on you Traveler!

how in the $Q&^&$^* are barges not required to have lights?

That is sad for the people involved in the accident yall are talking about.

 

of course down here on the Mississippi you never really see one not running a HUGE spot light.

 

 

I know when I got my boat I was scared to death, 35mph  and no trim felt like light speed, lol.

I guess I always been scared to die to do stupid stuff.

 

Here's the article on the accident....  http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/27/us/hudson-river-boat-accident/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

I checked the USCG Nav Rules and they are supposed to have lights, but there are exceptions, such as if they are anchored behind a Pier-head or designated anchorages.

At Bass boat speeds such an accident would probably kill everyone on board.

[Brian Needham]

reading the article sounds like they will fine the barge contractor for not properly lighting and ole' boy goes to jail for manslaughter.......neither of which is right, IMO and all of it sounds avoidable if everyone would just think safety for yourself and others first. 

sad sad for those families.

[gramps50]

The bass boat in the video didn't  seem to have much of the boat in the water, I was waiting for it to blow over long before he tried to cross the wake at speed. Reminds me of some of the jet skies around here. To me the 1st part of the video looked like an accident waiting for a place (time) to happen.

 

Like Brian I try to be pretty careful, I don't want to tear up my boat so I try not to do stupid things. Then all I have to worry about is the other idiots that don't care about their stuff or other people's stuff.

[Traveler2586]

The bass boat in the video didn't  seem to have much of the boat in the water, I was waiting for it to blow over long before he tried to cross the wake at speed. Reminds me of some of the jet skies around here. To me the 1st part of the video looked like an accident waiting for a place (time) to happen.

 

Like Brian I try to be pretty careful, I don't want to tear up my boat so I try not to do stupid things. Then all I have to worry about is the other idiots that don't care about their stuff or other people's stuff.

 

Is that what they call Show-Boating?

[aquaholic]

The guy in the video was asking for it.  The first part i thought he was going to catch a wake and go straight into a pole. 

[RAMBLER]

That kind of boating, in that video, is one of the reasons that I don't fish on the weekend.  There are a lot of people, on the water, that like to drive that way.  I don't want to be around them.  I have fished on the weekend, before I retired, and on easily accessible lakes have always had to put up with people that don't know how to run a boat.  Just like driving a car, there is more to it than "go fast".

 

I feel sorry for someone that gets hurt or killed, but that guy was asking for trouble from the first pass he made in front of the camera.

[J Francho]

That is called running on pad.  Performance bass boat hulls are designed to run like that.  My Bullet doesn't operate properly unless I'm properly trimmed and running on the pad, and that means all but the pad is out of the water.  There is a lot going on in this video, and while it might seem like he knows what he's doing, he doesn't.  In many of the passes, he's attempting to drive through chine walk.  You don't "drive through" it, you prevent it with steering input.  The only way to stop chine walk is to trim down, and then lift off the throttle - IN THAT ORDER.  When passing a wake, or turning, you should trim down a bit, and lift off the throttle a bit, using the hull to split the wave.  Otherwise, the wave causes the bow to slap, and you see the worst possible scenario here.  You don't even need a a wake to do it, just lifting the throttle without first trimming the bow back down will do it.  It's a great video for showing how not to drive, but as far as the advice to wear your PFD and attaching your kill switch, that sort of goes without saying.

[Nice_Bass]

That's exactly why I posted this video. I am sure it has been on the net for awhile but I had not seen it.

So many things can happen. There are wake board boats that throw a 4' roller off the back, that can travel for a long ways. That's what got me. The antics of those cowboys that are new boat owners make me cringe. The jetskiers are the onae that will get someone in trouble. They are like bees flying around a popcan.I have seen all this stuff while on the water and it can happen to anyone. Out here we have 45 mph speed limit and have to travel our lakes in a counter-clockwise travel. Which makes the center of the lake very very rough. There are times when you can hardly keep your boat on plane without feeling like you are in a wash machine.

Bottom line is..it CAN happen to anyone.

 

 

That video really does give me the chills.  Thanks for posting. 

[BKeith]

That one has been around a few years. All I can say is it just shows what happens when an inexperienced driver gets his first high performance boat. It's very obvious right from the start by the amount of chine walk he was getting, he didn't know how to drive the boat or didn't have enough since to know he had a boat so ill handling he had no business driving it. Then he puts the icing on the cake when he tries to take that wake at a 45 degree angle fully on the pad.

Understand, most all boats with a pad and riser hull will chine walk when fully on the pad, that's just a normal thing that just take a little seat time and practice on the steering wheel to keep the boat balanced (guessing which way to go. After all, you are trying to balance a six foot wide boat on a small surface at 70 mph, it's going to try falling off one side or the other. A boat not properly set up can be almost impossible to drive, causing it to chine walk in a way that can't be controlled.