Did anyone else see this on the news? Right in front of me to the starboard and right in the area of an informal mooring area, 4 kids were dumped out of a boat @ high speed-to-WOT and the empty boat began circling in 200' circles. As I turned to assist, I saw another boat already going for the kids in the water, so I went for the errant boat, since I figured that it was likely that no one else knew how to 'try' and stop a runaway boat.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/news...ay/vp-BB16lbDu
I have a small float tied to a 50' length of heavy floating poly line and ran to the inside of the errant boat's circle (for safety). Towing the float behind me, I then I gunned it, ran ahead of the boat (0:19 in the video) and dropped the line as soon as the boat crossed my wake ... and in my case it was not 10' off my stern :shock: ! I dropped the rope out of my hand, once I felt it pulled by the boat, but unfortunately it didn't catch the prop and on the next turn-around, the errant boat smashed into the glass houseboat.
Now that 19' tin workboat had a 90hp Suzi to a 4-blade prop at full speed and was bouncing all over the place - see video. But it was my hope that the floating line would snag the prop and hopefully stall out the engine. My line was cut. Now this trick does work on smaller motors, but maybe in this case it was just too much HP? I sure wish it had worked and that I had arrived seconds earlier to perhaps have prevented the kid in the water from being hit by his own boat, as he is in serious condition and had to be medflighted to a hospital.
Lesson Learned:
I regret not putting my wife down into the cuddy cabin for safety, as just having her stay low to the floor of the cockpit wasn't smart enough ... to me now in hindsight thinking. It all did happen really FAST though, as I keep that line w/ float in a cockpit side storage box right behind my helm, with the rope flaked (look it up, LOL!) and in ~5-seconds or less I had it ready to deploy.
Lessons to be Learned?
Yeah guys, I'm kicking myself around on this one ... as in what could I have done differently? Right also there on my helm was a floating life ring to a 50' hank of 3-strand nylon, or down in my cockpit 'bilge' there was a 100' length of heavy 'pot warp', which if you know that line that the lobstermen use - it is TOUGH as nails! But I think I would have needed a better buoy to tow that line however, to keep it well up on the surface.
I will say that if I saw the empty boat going for another kid in the water I'd have no reservations about ramming the boat from the inside of its turn, as AwlGrip can always be repaired/repainted ...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/news...ay/vp-BB16lbDu
I have a small float tied to a 50' length of heavy floating poly line and ran to the inside of the errant boat's circle (for safety). Towing the float behind me, I then I gunned it, ran ahead of the boat (0:19 in the video) and dropped the line as soon as the boat crossed my wake ... and in my case it was not 10' off my stern :shock: ! I dropped the rope out of my hand, once I felt it pulled by the boat, but unfortunately it didn't catch the prop and on the next turn-around, the errant boat smashed into the glass houseboat.
Now that 19' tin workboat had a 90hp Suzi to a 4-blade prop at full speed and was bouncing all over the place - see video. But it was my hope that the floating line would snag the prop and hopefully stall out the engine. My line was cut. Now this trick does work on smaller motors, but maybe in this case it was just too much HP? I sure wish it had worked and that I had arrived seconds earlier to perhaps have prevented the kid in the water from being hit by his own boat, as he is in serious condition and had to be medflighted to a hospital.
Lesson Learned:
I regret not putting my wife down into the cuddy cabin for safety, as just having her stay low to the floor of the cockpit wasn't smart enough ... to me now in hindsight thinking. It all did happen really FAST though, as I keep that line w/ float in a cockpit side storage box right behind my helm, with the rope flaked (look it up, LOL!) and in ~5-seconds or less I had it ready to deploy.
Lessons to be Learned?
Yeah guys, I'm kicking myself around on this one ... as in what could I have done differently? Right also there on my helm was a floating life ring to a 50' hank of 3-strand nylon, or down in my cockpit 'bilge' there was a 100' length of heavy 'pot warp', which if you know that line that the lobstermen use - it is TOUGH as nails! But I think I would have needed a better buoy to tow that line however, to keep it well up on the surface.
I will say that if I saw the empty boat going for another kid in the water I'd have no reservations about ramming the boat from the inside of its turn, as AwlGrip can always be repaired/repainted ...
