Was this Captain Licensed?

Confirmed. The operator was NOT a captain. He was a long time local boater who ran an automotive transmission shop. Obviously mechanically adept as well. At those speeds it takes only a moments distraction, a small judgement error or a mechanical glitch.

My intention is not to try this case in the media, but here's an excerpt from Newsday (10/06/09):
"Police said the boat traveled under the Goose Creek Bridge on the Wantagh Parkway "at a high rate of speed" before heading northeast and crashing more than a mile from the span. The channel under the bridge normally has a 5 mph speed limit but it is now closed because of a construction project. There is no speed limit in the channel by Goose Island."

The channel is 5 mph near and under the bridge. But the bridge is closed as it is under construction, making it a non-navigatable channel. The operator should have taken the bridge a little further south, but that would have meant that he would have to ride the slow zone channel back north, perhaps something he didn't want to do.
Not sure if this will be a bad hit to Hustler as the owner had this boat for many years. It will be a hit to his estate once the lawyers come.

That jives with what I hear. This is a link to the Google satalite map of the area.http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8....624637,-73.490896&spn=0.029511,0.076818&z=14

I'd guess from what I heard that his route was east down Sloop channel from Jones inlet (a safe place to go fast. making a left to avoid the good bridge but which puts you in a 5mph zone, passing the construction dock you see (not a safe place to go fast) making a hard right through the bridge followed by a hard left. That be a fun ride at speed. Like something you'd have seen on Miami Vice/

Hey, they ran a few of the boats across land in miami vice....I'll never forget, I was out with this friend of mine and he had a 20' Action with a 2.4 bridgeport merc on it, that ran mid 90's. We were running across biscayne bay at speed, and I see a sandbar coming at us REAL fast.......My friend trims the motor and hydraulic jackplate up, we skid across the sandbar and back in the water.....he lowers the jackplate and motor and keeps on going like nothing happened........

Actually, Operator of Uninspected Passenger Vessel and Operator of Uninspected Towing Vessels are licenses issued by the USCG.

My license reads Master, not Captain. Captain isn't really an officially sanctioned term, nor is Skipper....

We carried that discussion a long way on another thread. You'll note that Capt. J said "is called" and not "is a". Big difference. If anybody called me "Master" I'd be struck by the urge to set them free. The only exceptions to that would be Master Chief and Master of Arms. This here was just to differentiate between someone licensed and working in the trade as opposed to a Sunday sailor.

My point was on the assertion that an unlicenced person is an operator whereas Operator is actually listed on a license and Captain is not. Captain is a colloquial term that doesn't have any any official prerequisites.

See post #14

"Whether he held a certificate or not is beside the point except for the dilletantes who like to argue about what a captain is."

It's actually very simple, the captain is the person who holds liability for the operation of the craft regardless of certification. IOW, it's the person with top billing on the lawsuit when things go wrong, as you say, certificate regardless.

I think it's more deduction than speculation, especially as more information comes forward. So far I don't see any mean spiritedness. If a licensed 'captain' was at the helm this would be huge negligence instead of normal stupidity. I think this is an important area for discussion because of the number of lives lost and obviously from the incident some still need to learn the lessons. Because of the amount of cops out people rarely do 100 mph on the LIE any more. There is no such deterant on the waterways around here. Speed regulation is needed and that will only happen if there is discussion.

That "little sign" kept him from going through the bridge he should have used. Another at Goose Creek may have given him pause. People don't like getting tickets. It's something Long Islanders understand.

You have it in Florida. How's the death rate? Less than in the Miami Vice days? I know the thought of those guys hiding along the sides slows me down to the posted limit when I feel antsy coming through.

Accidents happen not on purpose but by mistake, that's why they're called accidents.

If the guy had the boat for years, and safely navigated the local waterways for years, then how can someone say "too much HP in the wrong hands?" Is every fatal accident on land the result of too much HP in the wrong hands? That's just arrogant foolishness on the part of a paper-holder to start hurling "Sunday Sailor" type invective out there, looking down your collective noses in such a snobbish manner.

How many boats go through that area at any speed without accident or incident every season? How many licensed captains have boating incidents of some sort each season?

Every so often someone pushes the envelope, of skills, ability, mechanical fortitude, what have you. Are the working captains on The Deadliest Catch working too much HP in the wrong hands, or **** fools for going out in conditions that would have yachtsmen scrambling for dockage away from the storm track?

I grew up on go-fasts, learned to run them before I moved up to larger and slower. My old man, with decades of racing v-hulls and tunnels, ran over a submerged log back in the 70s, in a 17' Sutphen overpowered to beat hell with a straight 6 Mercury, probably doing a bit over 60 when he hit. Took a big chunk out of the bottom of the hull. He gave the boat more throttle, trimmed the bow up, and ran for shore. He ended up beaching it without any injury or other drama. I've fortunately never had to handle that situation, running the same waters at speeds documented over 100MPH in boats from a 20' Kevlar Allison with a worked Merc Bridgepoert offshore race engine up to a 33' Sutphen with supercharged BBCs. Until you've operated a high horsepower deep-v at those speeds, it's pure conjecture on your part as to what, under normal circumstances at the hands of an experienced owner and/or operator, is "too fast."

Most of the boat groundings and collisions I've seen happen at far lower speeds. We had a fatality here, right off Highland Falls, in a marshy area last year (and as typical, the news coverage had many variations of the story, none of which was remotely factual aside from the names and who died). It was one of four groundings in the same spot, the slowest of which was a sailboat with a 9.9HP Honda four stroke. The difference between them was the operator in the fatal crash tried to turn and flipped the boat when his outdrives tripped sideways in the mud. That wasn't the fastest grounding, and it wasn't a high horsepower boat, but it was deadly.

Condemning the guy because of what boat he chose to own is just about the most foolish thing I've read on this board.

And last time I went out to the East End of Long Island, I was in the slow lane of the LIE doing 85 and being passed by traffic, with the cops cruising along in the flow, or sitting at the side not pulling people over.

76' wide, winding, populated by small boats as small as 12' or 14' anchored or drifting while fishing at night, bridge, 1' tall buoys, low marsh. What part of that description says good place to go fast? I've been in that channel when boats going 10 kts are passed in both directions by boats doing 40. Anchored boats were driven onto sandbars and still the boats don't slow down. 76' wide. I love speed. Get some on my bike, and doing 70 in the ocean is a rush, but that area should be slow speed and super fast boats should not operate near land or other boats.

Super fast boats in a recreational setting (not a race) can go as slow as any other. What I read from you earlier in the thread was a wholesale condemnation of go-fasts. I agree that there are unsafe practices in boating, and high speed in any venue carries inherent risks. But the fact of the matter is, most boating accidents, and even fatalities, happen at relatively low speeds.

I am not a fan of operating at night, because I know the risks that exist in the local waters. That said, some of the most fun I had was with an old carbed V8 Johnson Formula 1 that we hung off the back of an abused Hydrostream Vixen - at that age, probably no more than 240hp but on a 14 1/2 foot boat rated for 85 max. We banged that thing around in some local swamps for a season and nobody got killed or injured. The boat grounded a couple of times, and we ended up blowing the powerhead because the water intakes got packed with mud one too many times causing the engine to run hot. That boat would do an easy 90-95 completely out of control if you had any waves, but at 60-70 in the swamps it ran flat and tracked true, in addition to handling like it was on rails.

Those channels were maybe 12-15' wide, with about 2'-5' of water, at best, depending on the tides. Every so often you'd hit some skinny water where there was maybe 8" of depth about 3' wide. You ran full tilt through that area or you'd dig in and the boat would sit there until the next full moon high tide. Couldn't even try shovels or towing because the mucky bottom was all clay.

The only time I ever hit a buoy was in a buddy's aluminum Sea Nymph rated for 40hp but only had 25 on it. The bow came up so high you couldn't see past it, and never came down because there wasn't enough power to get the boat planing. My friend, who was paying attention to fish gear in the boat, ended up with two hooks through his hand.

Too little horsepower in the wrong hands?

I guess it's all a matter of perspective.


Edit: The boat around 5:02-5:35 (and a few other times) is probably the closest to my little Allison speed boat in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puHUEx7fCBI

Don't mind go-fasts and thoroughly enjoy speed with whatever type vehicle. No I just want those actions restricted to areas where there is less chance of disaster (something you'd think operators would figure out through asking themselves 'What if'). Not exactly 'blaming' the operator either. It looks like he did a stupid thing that he probably got away with tons of times before. Nothing we all haven't done at one time or another. I have a vivid memory of being in the passenger seat of a car doing 90 as it went through a toll booth many years ago.

Young, stupid and with a hot girl although I have more than a few such with me driving like passing 20 cars on the old Aligator Alley. I'm older now and (a little) slower. Just glad I didn't kill anyone.