470 hits wall in Cleveland

Alcohol is said to be involved. Everyone made it off the boat ok also.

The owner's/operator's blood alchohol level was 3 times the legal limit. He was so fucked up that he couldn't pronounce his name. I don't care what that boat had for electronics, it shouldn't have been out. Everyone got hurt. Some people more than others and some needed transport to the hospital. There was a child on board with no life jacket and a dog that was possibly injured and also so freaked out. The USCG pumped the fuel out before it sank. They are bringing in a crane and closing the airport for a period of time to lift it out of the water. The dude is fucked, rightfully. He was/is a member at Lakeside Yacht Club which is where the boat was docked and when they get it out of the water it will be at Sailing Inc's yard down the road on Marginal.
 
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Good for you! That's what it takes. Practice, practice practice.

Start on a beautiful clear day, and learn to correlate the radar returns with buoys and other boats with what the radar shows and what your eyes see.

Then, when all you have is radar, you will know what you are looking at.

Its not easy, and I don't do it regularly, but when you are caught out, it works - IF you are practiced and READY.

I run with my radar on in the daytime so I'm accustomed to it's capabilities. I run at night often and recently added a FLIR camera to aid me in my journeys, one of which is a frequent 7-mile trip across Long Island sound to a water front restaurant in Connecticut. I used to go to do the trip 30-years ago with nothing but a compass and handheld spot light. These tools are your friend if you know how to use them.
 
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Also besides learning to read the radar, learn how to set the sea/rain clutter. But a really nice feature most, if not all radars have is "EBL" and "VRM" settings. They are basically alarms that will alert you when targets fall with in the set limits. If nothing else, on a clear day it can be fun to learn this stuff. The manual for your radar will have sections on how to use/adjust these settings.

Most radars also have an alarm output wire. I have mine connected in parallel with the AIS alarm.
 
The owner's/operator's blood alchohol level was 3 times the legal limit. He was so fucked up that he couldn't pronounce his name. I don't care what that boat had for electronics, it shouldn't have been out. Everyone got hurt. Some people more than others and some needed transport to the hospital. There was a child on board with no life jacket and a dog that was possibly injured and also so freaked out. The USCG pumped the fuel out before it sank. They are bringing in a crane and closing the airport for a period of time to lift it out of the water. The dude is fucked, rightfully. He was/is a member at Lakeside Yacht Club which is where the boat was docked and when they get it out of the water it will be at Sailing Inc's yard down the road on Marginal.

Sounds like you're in the area. Post some pics once it's on the hard if you can.
 
Sounds like you're in the area. Post some pics once it's on the hard if you can.

If it's being taken to Sailing Inc, they share space with yachtauctions.com. You can go in pretending to look at one of their boats and probably get a good look at it

This Mensa pulled this off about a mile from our club.
We dont even leave the slip over the fourth because of the "More Money than Brains" set that comes out.
It's bad enough during the day on holiday weekends, but at night it's like playing Russian roulette.
 
Hopefully nobody seriously hurt from this. I’m curious to see how the insurance pans out. Drunk driver plus boat that couldve been secured and repaired. To not securing it and now is a total loss.
 
The owner's/operator's blood alchohol level was 3 times the legal limit. He was so fucked up that he couldn't pronounce his name. I don't care what that boat had for electronics, it shouldn't have been out. Everyone got hurt. Some people more than others and some needed transport to the hospital. There was a child on board with no life jacket and a dog that was possibly injured and also so freaked out. The USCG pumped the fuel out before it sank. They are bringing in a crane and closing the airport for a period of time to lift it out of the water. The dude is fucked, rightfully. He was/is a member at Lakeside Yacht Club which is where the boat was docked and when they get it out of the water it will be at Sailing Inc's yard down the road on Marginal.
While I do not condone drinking and driving I do understand that some like to have a few beers on a day out. But this level is not even buzzed, this is plastered! Who the hell in their right mind would ride with this guy in a plastered condition? The idiots that rode with the plastered guy bear some responsibility too…
 
While I do not condone drinking and driving I do understand that some like to have a few beers on a day out. But this level is not even buzzed, this is plastered! Who the hell in their right mind would ride with this guy in a plastered condition? The idiots that rode with the plastered guy bear some responsibility too…

I was in that situation once with a dock neighbor. It was the captain's birthday we were anchored out and things got out of control - they had invited us out. I brought the boat back after insisting. I didn't drink anything because I could tell it may head that way. As a passenger at some point, you need to speak up as well.
 
Good for you! That's what it takes. Practice, practice practice.

Start on a beautiful clear day, and learn to correlate the radar returns with buoys and other boats with what the radar shows and what your eyes see.

Then, when all you have is radar, you will know what you are looking at.

Its not easy, and I don't do it regularly, but when you are caught out, it works - IF you are practiced and READY.

I agree, its all about practice.

I don't normally turn the radar on when in the ICW. When I start towards the inlet then the radar comes on. Doesn't matter what the weather is, radar is on. A person has to get comfortable with interpreting what you are seeing. Both of us are constantly reconciling visible craft against what the radar is showing.

Don't normally use the overlay function. I run one chart plotter on charts. The other is dedicated to the radar display. I use a split screen radar display with one window normally set to 2NM, the other to 4NM. As visibility decreases, we slow down and bring the radar ranges in.

The real key is the radar display becoming second nature. That only happens with constant use.
 
Or don’t believe it. You pilot guys on here, Carpe?, isn’t there a study says a lot of private plane crashes are caused by not believing the instruments? Didn’t they find from black box that JFK jr flew the plane straight into the water even though his instruments were telling him “stop doing this”?
It has been said earlier in the thread that once alcohol is introduced into the scenario, all "understanding" of the instruments is mute. In JFK Jr's example, He was a very inexperienced celebrity pilot. He was in over his head before he took off and lacked the experience to trust his instruments instead of his physiology.
I sincerely hope this guy loses everything he has and spends ten years in prison if only to be a possible deterrent to others who might drink to excess while skippering a vessel. I see skippers every weekend stagger off their boats after sketchy landings and just shake my head. Part of me wants to report them but I realize that would do nothing but make me a whiner. God help one of them if they ever harm me, my family or my boat. They will rue the day and likely be sucking their beer thru a straw for 6 weeks!
Carpe Diem
 
The owner's/operator's blood alchohol level was 3 times the legal limit. He was so fucked up that he couldn't pronounce his name. I don't care what that boat had for electronics, it shouldn't have been out. Everyone got hurt. Some people more than others and some needed transport to the hospital. There was a child on board with no life jacket and a dog that was possibly injured and also so freaked out. The USCG pumped the fuel out before it sank. They are bringing in a crane and closing the airport for a period of time to lift it out of the water. The dude is fucked, rightfully. He was/is a member at Lakeside Yacht Club which is where the boat was docked and when they get it out of the water it will be at Sailing Inc's yard down the road on Marginal.

They should put it on the rocks with a giant sign that says DON'T BUI
 
Should not need radar to determine there was a jetty there. I learned early on that I need to know where I was relative to charts on the water.

Basic chart plotter should guide a person in. Or, I am guessing there must have been markers...

The culprit here is speed, too fast for the conditions and location. As others have said probably brought on by excessive consumption. "Here, hold my rum and coke, I have been through this inlet a hundred times..."

Well, make that 100 attempts, 99 sucessess.
 
It's gotten to be an odd ritual that I'm not sure how it started, but on our boat the captain only gets to drink after the bell rings. The bell doesn't ring until after the lines are on and the shore power is hooked back up.
The only exception to this is for the air show when anchored - 1 beer per hour max and stop when the Thunderbirds or Blue Angels head up.

Not to go all Justice Kavanaugh, but I like beer (and drink alot of it), but I can figure out how to hold off till the ride is over.
 
It's gotten to be an odd ritual that I'm not sure how it started, but on our boat the captain only gets to drink after the bell rings. The bell doesn't ring until after the lines are on and the shore power is hooked back up.
The only exception to this is for the air show when anchored - 1 beer per hour max and stop when the Thunderbirds or Blue Angels head up.

Not to go all Justice Kavanaugh, but I like beer (and drink alot of it), but I can figure out how to hold off till the ride is over.

I agree. I definitely enjoy cocktail hour on the boat. But doesn't start till the boat is secured from moving.
 
I used to have 2-3 beers per summer on the boat. I don't even do that anymore.
 
I used to take my parents over to the islands with their friends and I never drank. I was the captain of the boat and I’m responsible for all those on board. I let my parents have a good time and I would wait till we where back to the house before I would drink. Sometimes I’d come back and take the jet back to the bay with my buddies, That’s when I’d drink. We stayed over there btw.
 
I almost never used the radar during the day when we were on local waters. In fog and/or after dark--ALWAYS.

Take a close look at this first picture below. I was entering the bay where my old yacht club was. I'd been in and out a bazillion times but never in a fog like this. Can you see the levee ahead of me, and the tree that's on it? The levee is only about a boat length in front of me. Now look at photo #2

P1010036.jpg


I took this photo before the one above. The black line extending from the boat is a "Lubber Line". It shows where the boat is pointed. The red line shows the actual course of the boat. They're different because of about a 2kt current that's on my starboard side. The purple blobs are land masses and they're offset a bit because of the delay in the radar sweep. On this pic, look at the corner of the display. My SOG (speed over ground) is .12kts. Just barely creeping ahead. Ya gotta love a good radar display and also knowing what it's showing you.

P1010035.jpg
 

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