Accident at Spindle Point July 11
 

Reports of person badly injured by moving propeller near Spindle Point around 12pm today. Hopefully, the person will be okay. Lots of sirens, Marine Patrol, etc.

I hate to hear about those kinds of accidents. I sure hope the victim is OK.

Let us know when you hear any more. We were caught up in the traffic at the lights and was wondering what happened. Hope it wasn't too serious.

We were at the weirs docks pulling in at the same time they were bringing him off the boat. Got it in the back of the thigh from what we saw. I would say they were wake boarding at the time judging by the vest on him and the board still on the seat. They had an Iv in and he was bandaged up and still bleeding. I only saw one other person in the boat at the dock, but it's possible another jumped off and went in the ambulance with the patient. I hope there was a spotter!

Glad to hear the victim is alive.

My wife works at the hospital and said two prop strike victims were coming in.

Wonder if they were wake surfing close to the boat.

I saw a wakeboard, not a wake surf board but who knows?

The boat was an I/O, it is recommended not to surf behind a stern drive.

RECOMMENDED!!! no kidding:eek:

I love watching the wake surfing and wish it was formalized way back when. I used to ride a full sized wind surfer behind the boat and would ride the wake; but never dreamed of riding the big wave right behind the boat

My best to the person(s) hurt. Crappy way to end the day on the water

There is no law against doing it with a stern drive and it's done every day on the lake but it's extremely dumb and dangerous.

Really! I can't imagine surfing off a stern drive. The ones that I watch off the deck have been in-boards.

It looks fun

Enough speculating
 

One of the accidents in Meredith was a 15 year old boy who was wakeboarding. I don't know the details, but he was not wake surfing or doing anything reckless. I know because I coach the boy in football and just spoke with his father.

People near the back of the boat in the water..... turn off the motor before they get within 10 feet.

I made no speculations above. You are incorrect though, someone was reckless.
The driver of the boat. The prop didn't just jump off the shaft and bite the boy... Clearly they were too close, not paying attention or didn't know what they were doing.

It would be useful to all boaters to understand the scenario that led to the accident. If a detailed explanation is made available, I hope someone posts it here. Otherwise we are just speculating, and nobody learns anything.

I can't imagine any scenario in which someone being towed and is completely behind the propeller ends up being struck by it. If I am missing something, enlighten me.

The only thing I can imagine is that the person injured was not being towed at the time of the accident, but was in the water with the boat approaching, perhaps to be picked up or to have the rope brought around for another pull. Boat comes too close to swimmer, driver cuts wheel sharply to steer away, resulting in prop being aimed directly at swimmer. This is pure speculation on my part, but aside from a second boat coming too close to the swimmer, what else is there?

I have one friend who thinks I go "overboard" on this issue. Before anyone gets within 20 feet of the boat, I turn the boat off and remove the key. I then hold up the key so that those in the water can see it and I announce, "The key is out of the ignition". I then put the key on the dashboard or in my pocket. I do NOT put it back in the ignition. When everyone is safely away from the boat, I announce, "Starting engine" and then wait 3 seconds before I reach for the key. This allows at least 5 seconds for anyone to tell me, "Wait, Mabel is still in the water behind the boat", in case I missed her.

Unfortunately I have witnessed behavior that just begs for an accident. I'm not saying it happened here.

What I have seen includes leaving the engine running (boat with outdrive) while swimmers board or disembark from the back and kids jumping off the back of a boat while underway (again with an outdrive). All very unsafe practices in my opinion.

As Bear Grylls says, "You can get it right 1000 times, you only have to get wrong once." This often goes through my head when I do something with a consequence.
You have a safe system, if it works for you do it. The time you rush, or take it for granted where someone is, is when when the unthinkable could happen.

I didn't say that you were speculating. In fact, your first post was the only informative post in this thread. I said that the boy wasn't being reckless. I don't know about the operator of the boat. When I spoke to the boy's dad, I didn't ask for the details out of respect for the family who is dealing with a crisis. I didn't think he would appreciate being questioned.

If I do find out info, I will post it here.

could have been the boat not running and the person swimming behind the boat and just cutting their legs on the prop, they are still very sharp, even when not moving. Or trim could havbe been up and the hit it themselves

again just asking/speculating and agree that details need to come out first

New guy to boating here, so can someone explain why outboard and I/O are OK to surf behind, but not stern drive? They all have exposed propellers, right?

boat type
 

thinkxingu to answer your question the only type of boat you should ever surf behind in an inboard/vdrive with the prop tucked up and under the boat. Never should it be done with a boat with the prop visible I/O (stern drive), outboards etc...I know folks that do it but you can very easily run up close and hit the back of the boat with the board and fall and that would be to close for me with the prop right there.

I hope the two that were injured by the props will fully recover and be ok.

I/O = inboard outboard or sterndrive. Outboard is essentially a sterndrive as the prop is hanging off the stern. IMO neither should be wake-boarded from.

Sorry to derail thread, but one more point of clarification, please--what is different between skiing/tubing, which are OK to do behind an outboard or I/O (right?) and surfing/wakeboarding? I'm trying to learn as much as possible to not be "that new guy"!

I think waterskiing, tubing and wake boarding are understood as being towed behind the boat, usually 75' back. But wake surfing is directly behind the boat usually without a rope.

http://rideliquid.com/wp-content/upl..._thumbnail.png

Here goes with an answer to the difference of skiing, wakeboarding, surfing etc..you can add kneeboarding in there as well

You can do any of the watersport but surf with and I/O(stern), outboard
Tubing stick a tube off a long rope and sit there and bounce around behind the boat
water skiiing two or single ski...(like snow skiing on water) long ski rope far from the boat no issues
Wakesurfing only with an inboard google it but its riding a surfboard within 10 feet or less of the boat with no rope
Wakeboarding ...think of snowboarding on water. long rope lots of tricks google videos on this you'll see some crazy tricks.

what is also important is rope selection. I'd suggest going to Sport Parafunalia in Gilford they can set you up with all this stuff and answer all these questions and more.

Nylon rope for skiing, a non strech rope for wakeboarding and I prefer no handle just a knoted rope handle for surfing so you don't get twisted up with a handle.

hope that helps some

JRC's pic is perfect look of what wakesurfing looks like and even better that its behind a Mastercraft :)

skiing/tubing / Wakeboarding / Knee boarding can all be done behind any power boat regardless of type of propulsion. Although some work better than others.

Wake surfing is a relatively new sport where the "surfer" "rides" on the front side of the first wave created by the wake of the boat. Once under way they toss the rope into the boat and ride the wave only a few feet from the back of the boat; IMHO this should ONLY be done on a true IN-board where the prop is under the boat a few feet from the stern of the boat.

Perfect, all--thanks!

The boy's dad sent me a picture of his leg. I won't post it, but he had at least 2 cuts with lots of stitches. One was a vertical cut deep into the back of his thigh (hamstring). He also got cut horizontally at least halfway around his lower leg/shin. That area actually was partially de-gloved.
He is doing well, but will have a long road to recovery.

Near miss
 

I witnessed a near miss at the West Alton sandbar over the weekend.

She started the boat up and started to back out and wasn't looking back to see where she was going.

It took 3-4 of us screaming that there was someone behind her before she stopped.

Look where you are going!

I want to offer a slightly different perspective to the wake surfing. For those of us who live in areas where this is practices. The huge waves that are generated by the boats are eroding our shorefront and causing our boats to pound docks, break mooring whips, etc. etc. I wonder why they don't do this in front of their property but travel to others.

If they did it in front of their properties their boat woukld be safe cause their doing it in it.....:rolleye2:

Not everyone is privileged enough to own on the lake....Just because they boat on it doesn't mean they own on it.

I tire of hearing this argument, and yes, I am a waterfront property owner.

There is no boat out there that generates bigger waves or has more shoreline impact than the waves that roll in repeatedly on a windy day. On a blustery day we can have 3' rollers coming in all day that completely dwarf anything we see from a boat.

I understand what you are saying, but the coves where people typically wake surf don't have enough fetch to let 3 foot rollers build.

After living for 10 years on a bay that was known to be one of the busier for watersports, as well as owning 4 different wakeboard boats I can say from my experience that this type of boat and the associated sports are not the real problem. (I did receive a noise complaint from Bear Island once though :rolleye2:)

It was the cabin cruisers and the mail boat that were the worst for us. There were days where it looked like the waves coming off some of these was going to put our neighbors small bowrider on top of their dock.

the argument holds no water (pun intended)
the water is owned by the state for use of the public,
now if you were on an private body of water that is different, should be end of discussion

Sounds like it was a terrible accident, I actually don't refer to it as a prop when I'm on board, I call it the meat grinder......

I did not mean to imply that those boats are the real problem, I have no idea what the real problem is, just wanted to point out that there are places on the lake where natural 3 foot rollers are simply not possible.

This is a thread about a terrible accident !

Do we have to turn this one into an erosion debate ?

.... seems to me threads can't stay on track lately!




Just sayin

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Just saw a news article online, a 16 year old girl was killed in NY in a tubing accident. Driver of the boat they were being towed behind (3 girls in the water) ran the girls over.

People really are that stupid.... Glad the outcome of the ones here were better.

A good example of a driver having a boating license ( which they did) but apparently not enough practical experience. Seems like someone should have spent more time with the driver learning the safe way to tow/ retrieve before actually being allowed to. Tragic.

According to the reports I read the boat stopped and the girls on the tube continued momentum brought them under the boat. Must have been a short line. Awfull. And it was in Connecticut.

Sorry, I saw that it was in the Long Island Sound and typed NY instead of CT.

http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/l...270204721.html

Wake of 3'—4-inches. (Not disagreeing with Dave R)
 

1) Here, wakesurfing hasn't been much of a concern with regard to wakes hitting the shoreline. However, Monday, passengers willingly reclined over the transom to increase the weight aft to make the "surf" greater.

2) In the decades we're lived here, we've never seen a wake run over the top of our dock—until yesterday! (Sunday). I expected a passing cruiser to make a big wake, and took a photo of the culprit for posterity.

I was a bit slow in getting the camera ready, so it shows only the middle of the wake crashing against our shoreline. Note the height of the spray passing in front of the camera lens and the sand being roiled. Later, grasses floated by having been uprooted by this wake. :eek2:

I'd placed a cement block to record strong wakes, but that same cement block appearing in this video had been moved by a previous, and unseen boat's wake.

The short video appears below, and "works-for-me":

http://vid70.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1e542765.mp4

The dock's height is presently 20-inches above the water—so, measured from trough to peak—that makes it a 3-feet, 4-inch wave when it accelerated near shore, and struck the dock.

The photo attached below shows the edge and top of the soaked dock.

:eek:

.

Is that a ballot box? Something about election equipment.

But that's a big wake!

Update to the case in CT. Its about time someone is held accountable.


http://news.yahoo.com/video/long-isl...034244465.html

Just to clarify, this is not the tubing incident. This was a OUI case on a 50ft Sea Ray and sounds like a terrible accident based on the guys attorney. Supposedly the guy asked everyone to get out of the water and after walking around the boat started it up.

I'll reserve judgement until the toxicology report is complete and the case is closed.

My bad for just looking at the headline....I will eat crow on this one.