[upthesaukee]

As memory serves me right, both of those incidents involved the boat being put through some radical or severe or tight turns, and I suppose that if that was the case, the proximate cause was more the turning (what would possibly be considered by some as a reckless operation...my thought actually) as opposed to the speed itself being the cause. Speed may then be considered a "contributing factor". I guess we would have to see the "accident report" to see how it was written up to see where Director Barrett gets his information.

I would also question the "any speed is safe" point of view. I can certainly drive a car around NHIS, and would be comfortable driving a properly equipped car at a fairly high rate of speed. I would also believe that if I tried to drive that car at a speed that the NASCAR drivers do, I would probably be unsafe. Similarly, those who feel that they could run at the speeds of a "Miss Budweiser" probably would lack the training to safely handle those speeds. I hope that common sense will prevail for those with the boats capable of very high rates of speed and we won't have our "first" accident due to speed.