Cudz Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 As I mentioned on another thread I was in a pretty serious boating accident earlier this summer. We hit about a 4ft wall of rocks (peninsula) at 45 mph in complete darkness at midnight. There were 7 of us in the boat and we managed to clear 40 ft (length of peninsula) in the air. I do remember being in the air for quite some time. I don't know how high we were but I have to assume we were at least 10ft off the water. The impact on the rocks wasn't bad but the landing really sucked. We landed sideways and stopped immediately. We were all tossed around like rag dolls. The boat was written off with dramatic stress to the hull and multiple holes. The outdrive was toast as well. The boat was full of fuel (170 liters) and it came to rest in 2 ft of water. The boat in the picture is actually sunk and resting on the bottom. Everyone stayed in the boat throughout the jump and landing. Injuries were very minor considering the impact and damage to the boat and the boat's interior. Of all the passengers, we had 2 black eyes, a sore toe, one cut elbow, a sore a$$ (no comment there), a slightly sore back. I know we were in the air for a while because I distincly remembe thinking to myself - Hey this is not too bad- ... That was until we hit the water. I was standing in the passenger seat next to the driver facing backward. Everyone else was in the boat at the back. Thank God nobody was sitting in the bow seats. I only turned around at the last second to see a huge grey wall in front of me. The boat itself is quite big. In the picture it doesn't make it look very big but it is a 21.5' Chapparel. Strong boat for sure. Any slower and we might have landed on the rocks. Any faster and I probably wouldn't be writing this letter. Lesson learned for sure. The walk back to the cottage was bad as well as we had to walk through knee deep marsh. We also got lost and it took us 1.5 hours to find the cottage. It is great to have angels looking over me. Also for anyone else who is attempting to hit these same rocks, 40-45 mph is the correct speed you need to clear them provided that your boat has a big bow. PS to add insult to injury, I have been on this lake 3 times at night and have hit this same peninsula twice. Once this summer and once 18 years ago. OOPS! Before anyone says: You should know better- You shouldn't do that etc. We know. It was a nasty lesson but everyone involved learned something. All seven guys on that boat own boats so there were many lessons learned. It was a mistake and the driver felt really really bad. He was on unknown lake with about 6 other guys who "knew" the lake and these narrows. Although we weren't driving, we didn't help things either. Oh yeah. We only went out for about 30 minutes but we got skunked that evening and in the accident we managed to break 3 or 4 rods, 2 reels, and my tackle box. Here are a few pics. point of impact point of impact different angle peninsula from landing end. The guy standing is at the point of impact end damage more damage other side outdrive being held on by hydraulic arms. Note huge crack at the top of stern drive picture of prop and skeg - Prob is a wallhanger for sure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeedLine Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 Scary...things could have been much worse. Good to know no one was seriously hurt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muskyhunter5150 Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 Crazy, I can't belive that no one got seriously hurt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kickingfrog Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 My dad would say: Some of us are meant to hang. Glad it worked out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zebco Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 Amazing tale, I'm glad you lived to tell it. We all have made stupid mistakes or get too brave with our buddy's at some point in our lives. Part of living. Good story for the Grandkids! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solopaddler Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 Well you know what they say, 3 times a charm! Honestly it's amazing you hit that peninsula and at such high speed. It's so close to shore! (You guys were very lucky) I was involved in something similar years back. I'm sure many of you guys are familiar with the prop eating sunken railbed on Rice lake? My bud and I were blasting across the lake in his Triton, I just said "hey aren't we near that railbed?" when we hit it full speed and ripped the lower end off the motor. It was......ugly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cast-Away Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 Wow you guys were really lucky. Any one of you could have fallen out of the boat in mid air and landed on that rock point. I'm not trying to be a prick but, why would your buddy be driving so fast, so late at night with 6 passengers in the boat and driving close to shore? Was he drinking, or just trying to show off, or a bit of both? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walleyejigger Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 just amazing, glad everyone was alright Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cudz Posted December 17, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 Wow you guys were really lucky. Any one of you could have fallen out of the boat in mid air and landed on that rock point. I'm not trying to be a prick but, why would your buddy be driving so fast, so late at night with 6 passengers in the boat and driving close to shore? Was he drinking, or just trying to show off, or a bit of both? Maybe showing off a bit. Boat can actually do a hair under 60. It had a 5.7 265 hp. It really isn't that close to shore. The angle is weird. He was looking up to see where the trees parted which he thought was where the narrows started. He was wrong. The narrows started about 200 yards before that. He was about to throttle down to endter the narrows. Problem was that he had already entered the narrows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cudz Posted December 17, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 My dad would say: Some of us are meant to hang. Glad it worked out. Hey Rob, You know whose cottage that is at? Your old football coach's. Tony and Rob were both in the boat for the accident. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fisherman Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 Sorry, but 45 mph in complete darkness, Dr. Phil has an expression, what were ya'll thinkin. That's lookin for trouble. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nemo Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 Wow lucky ride. How much to fix the boat? What did the ladies say? Wouldn't have wanted to hear that......ouch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cast-Away Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 Wow lucky ride. How much to fix the boat? What did the ladies say? Wouldn't have wanted to hear that......ouch. Funny Nemo! "What did the ladies say?" How about "Is he still married?!!!!!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kickingfrog Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 Hey Rob,You know whose cottage that is at? Your old football coach's. Tony and Rob were both in the boat for the accident. My wife (who is 8 months pregnant) says I'm not allowed to go fishing with you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nofish4me Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 There ain't no fish or woman, that will get me to be out on the water after dark. When I was young, I used to run at night on the water for fish and to visit girls. Had my share of problems in the dark, with both. LOL I came across a 14' tinny one time at 2:00 in the morning, tied it to my boat and circled the area looking for occupants, after sunrise I decided to leave, took the boat to local marina. Turns out someone just had the boat go adrift. I made a pact with myself that I would never go on the water after dark again. Every stupid thing I've done involved a woman, oh ya, and some alcohol. LOL I'll never go on water in the dark again, there has been several years pass since then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
purekgw Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 what you doing with the motor lol we need a 5.7L Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 Wow, thanks for posting those. That was very scary indeed. I'm glad nobody was seriously hurt and it certainly seems like the lesson was learned. Did you go buy a lotter ticket the next day? Joey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest gbfisher Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 Who wants to go boating with Cudz................. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
irishfield Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 I'm sayin we let him loose in the Delawana Channel Andy heading North and see if he can make it three on the angled cut from the channel towards McCray (sp) Lake. Lost count of how many boats I've seen up on that rock in the last 25 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
purekgw Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 does no one use GPS at night?!? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
irishfield Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 does no one use GPS at night?!? Daplumma... you wanna tell that story or should I ? lol..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cudz Posted December 17, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 (edited) does no one use GPS at night?!? GPS is for losers. We go by feel. The boat was written off. The engine was an injected 5.7 and it had about 200hrs on it. The salvage guy got the boat just for that reason. He said it wasn't worth it except for the engine (Pretty sure he got $200 worth of gas and a $1200 wake cage as well). Edited December 17, 2008 by Cudz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cudz Posted December 17, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 My wife (who is 8 months pregnant) says I'm not allowed to go fishing with you. Tell her we can't do as much damage with a 12' tinner and 6hp. We can try though. Just get her to double up on the life insurance. My wife expects me to do stupid stuff. I told her about the accident and she didn't bat an eye. I am always do something dumb. I currently have a broken ankle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nofish4me Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 does no one use GPS at night?!? How about this? GPS can really suck! Would you trust your GPS over anything Coast Gaurd has? I'm not going to say where, except NE corner of GB, but I was in camp and heard a boat coming towards camp, it was 10:00pm. Fog, so thick, we actually had to have a "Camp Day"! The feller, that came into camp, runs a camp in the French River delta and he was surprised when he came upon us ('cause he knows us). He said it was the first time in 23 years he was never able to get home. He had GPS, and (it was so foggy) a Coast Gaurd escort, leading the way. Guess what? Coast Gaurd actually ran into an Island ( they were travelling at at a snails pace ). About 2/3 the way they left and he was on his own. He spent the night with us and left the next morning (breakfast was late for American Plan). Hehehe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bernie Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 does no one use GPS at night?!? I have seen two boats come into our shop that had worse damage than the one posted here. Guess how they were navigating? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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