Sea Ray Crashes Into Break Wall

Well, it's another weekend and another crash story to report on :-(

 This past Friday evening, a boater from our marina went out for an evening cruise and, according to witnesses, around 11:00 PM, he hit the stone break wall at the approach from the lake.  Let me re-phrase that - it was more like LAUNCHED onto the break wall!

Here is a shot of the salvage crew trying to free the boat from the bottom, after it was towed off the big rocks;

  At the spot where he hit, the depth of water is less than 2 feet, so the boat must have been moving at a high rate of speed to get through that before actually crashing into the wall. Probably a good thing, as the sandy bottom probably slowed the boat enough so that no fatalities resulted.

These guys had been working all night to patch the hull (they put plywood over a hole in the bow & filled it with expanding foam), finally freeing it around noon;

So, ask yourself how the heck someone could hit a BIG FRIGGEN WALL at high speed? Can you say 'Driving Under The Influence'?
In this shot, you can see how low it was riding in the water. It looked like they were running two big gas pumps + the bilge pumps to keep her afloat;

Here is the tow vessel tied up alongside of the stricken Sea Ray. It looked like she was only running on the starboard engine, plus the story is that the steering wheel broke off when the guy driving smashed into it upon impact. I hear it left a big impression on him ;-)
 I'm not going to refer to the driver as a 'captain', as he was clearly not in control of the boat, as a true captain would be;

 The saddest part of this story is that when we were walking back to shore, we discovered that a fellow boater who was also checking out the damage with his wife, fell between the rocks of the break wall & broke his leg. He is an older fellow and was unable to be helped out, so an ambulance was called and we (about five other boaters who were there) all carried him out on one of those flat stretcher boards.
 We are all hopeful for a speedy recovery there, Ron;

Here is a video clip from all the excitement;

 So, the lesson for today kids, is Be Careful!!!