Hawk388
Active Member
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Free Safety Course
I wish the two boaters in the Intercoastal (the ditch as we call it) that caused me to flip my ski this morning would have taken this course. I doubt it would have made a difference since after I called the police, they were found to have BAC's of .28 and .19 respectively.
A guy in a 24' fish and ski fiberglass boat came out of an offshoot from the left doing about 40mph right into my path. I couldn't turn starboard due to a sailboat on my right so I cut left, port, trying to get out of his way. I was caught by surprise because I was paying attention to the sailboat while over taking him on his port side. The sailboat was too close to the right hand side of the intercoastal for me to overtake him on starboard.
Right then, a friggin 26' pontoon boat with a 175HP motor on it came flying out right behind the fish and ski. So I basically tried to do a flat spin 180 in a hard to port maneuver to miss both of them. I hit the wake behind the pontoon at about 20mph and not even 15' behind it. The ski flipped over and threw me about 10' away from it. When I came up out of the water, the sailboater was SCREAMING at the two other boats who had come off plane and were laughing at the sailboat guy. I yelled WTF are you DOING? at the two boats and the fish and ski guy looked bashful while the guy and his crew on the pontoon flipped me the bird while telling me to F off. I flipped the ski over real quick and as I was pulling the seat off to inspect for water, I invited them to come and talk to me on the side and they declined. Both boaters took off heading East along the ditch. Knowing they had a good 45 minute trip to reach West Bay in Panama City, and after I was sure my motor wasn't full of water, I called the police and told them what happened. I then took off in pursuit at 60mph.
I caught up with them about 4 miles from the bridge that marks the entrance to West Bay. This is the highway 79 bridge. I kept about 250 meters behind them and they never even looked back at me as they were swerving wildly from one side of the ditch to the other. Low and behold, a Bay County Sheriff's boat came roaring under the bridge about the same time as I saw the bridge come into view. The two idiots in their boats suddenly got very respectful about staying on the right hand side of the ditch. However, my description of them had the officers pulling them both over very quickly. I then approached at a slow speed and told the officers I was the one who called them in. They told me to tie up alongside the Sheriffs boat. The officers gave all of us breathalizer tests and also checked all of our paperwork.
Of course, I passed with a .00 while the other two were arrested. This was at 1030am!!! No one on the pontoon boat was sober out of five people. So the officers tied the pontoon off to their rear cleats and pulled it along to a dock at The Bay restaurant and sent in a request to have it towed in by Seatow.
My left shoulder is hurting pretty badly right now. It's the shoulder I have had two surgeries on. Now I'm worried I've messed it up again thanks to those jackasses. I have their information though, so their insurance can pay for anything.
People, PLEASE don't drink and boat!!!! These two idiots almost killed me. The only thing that saved my ass was knowing my ski well enough to do some pretty drastic direction changes and even then, I almost hit that damned pontoon boat.
Free Safety Course
I wish the two boaters in the Intercoastal (the ditch as we call it) that caused me to flip my ski this morning would have taken this course. I doubt it would have made a difference since after I called the police, they were found to have BAC's of .28 and .19 respectively.
A guy in a 24' fish and ski fiberglass boat came out of an offshoot from the left doing about 40mph right into my path. I couldn't turn starboard due to a sailboat on my right so I cut left, port, trying to get out of his way. I was caught by surprise because I was paying attention to the sailboat while over taking him on his port side. The sailboat was too close to the right hand side of the intercoastal for me to overtake him on starboard.
Right then, a friggin 26' pontoon boat with a 175HP motor on it came flying out right behind the fish and ski. So I basically tried to do a flat spin 180 in a hard to port maneuver to miss both of them. I hit the wake behind the pontoon at about 20mph and not even 15' behind it. The ski flipped over and threw me about 10' away from it. When I came up out of the water, the sailboater was SCREAMING at the two other boats who had come off plane and were laughing at the sailboat guy. I yelled WTF are you DOING? at the two boats and the fish and ski guy looked bashful while the guy and his crew on the pontoon flipped me the bird while telling me to F off. I flipped the ski over real quick and as I was pulling the seat off to inspect for water, I invited them to come and talk to me on the side and they declined. Both boaters took off heading East along the ditch. Knowing they had a good 45 minute trip to reach West Bay in Panama City, and after I was sure my motor wasn't full of water, I called the police and told them what happened. I then took off in pursuit at 60mph.
I caught up with them about 4 miles from the bridge that marks the entrance to West Bay. This is the highway 79 bridge. I kept about 250 meters behind them and they never even looked back at me as they were swerving wildly from one side of the ditch to the other. Low and behold, a Bay County Sheriff's boat came roaring under the bridge about the same time as I saw the bridge come into view. The two idiots in their boats suddenly got very respectful about staying on the right hand side of the ditch. However, my description of them had the officers pulling them both over very quickly. I then approached at a slow speed and told the officers I was the one who called them in. They told me to tie up alongside the Sheriffs boat. The officers gave all of us breathalizer tests and also checked all of our paperwork.
Of course, I passed with a .00 while the other two were arrested. This was at 1030am!!! No one on the pontoon boat was sober out of five people. So the officers tied the pontoon off to their rear cleats and pulled it along to a dock at The Bay restaurant and sent in a request to have it towed in by Seatow.
My left shoulder is hurting pretty badly right now. It's the shoulder I have had two surgeries on. Now I'm worried I've messed it up again thanks to those jackasses. I have their information though, so their insurance can pay for anything.
People, PLEASE don't drink and boat!!!! These two idiots almost killed me. The only thing that saved my ass was knowing my ski well enough to do some pretty drastic direction changes and even then, I almost hit that damned pontoon boat.
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