Re: What if.... hit an oyster bar at 20mph
I watched a guy a back in the early 90's try to ski across a visable sandbar at low tide and come to a complete stop right after, his three passengers all went over the bow, he ended up on the floor, and the outboard nearly flipped into the boat. The result was a badly damaged transom, some deep gouges in the hull along the bottom, one bent and one missing blade on his aluminum prop, broken skeg, some leaking lower unit oil, a smashed cuddy cabin door, some bad bruises and three pissed off female passengers who survived with only a few scrapes and bruises most likely from them crashing over and through the bow rail. They all said the driver was drinking all day and was driving crazy the whole afternoon.
I felt sorry for the three that went flying, one I believe was his girlfriend, and the others were just along for the ride. It was a case of a first time boater with no common sense, he even said he saw the sand bar and had watched others hit it in the past. He tryed to cross it at low tide anyhow.
The boat was brand new at the time, and was about a 21' cuddy cabin with a Force 150 ouboard. It was scrap after that incident. The transom had a crack all the way across just even with the bottom of the motor bracket, the ends were split open, and the motor bracket was pushed into and partway through the top edge. The motor bracket did break, but only from it slamming all the way up against it's stops, it was hanging by only one side of the bracket when it came to rest. I saw him heading for the samd bar, did a double take and heard the engine slam and then scream at the redline for a minute and the three women screaming as they went over the rail. It's a good thing that it did kill the engine, because all three were directly in the path of the boat when they landed. If the boat hadn't of stopped, they would have most likely met the prop.
They're hitting the bow rail also bent and pulled the rail partially out of the glass hull, so one or more of them surely felt that, if not then the next few days. I think the one that hit the rail first was his girlfriend. Neither her nor the driver stuck around once they hit the docks, they were content with leaving the boat to sink and leaving the other two behind. They wandered away screaming at each other, neither of them every saying a word to me. The driver was actually hesistant to accept help, but his passengers pretty much insisted they were either going to leave him by himself if he would not let me tow them back. All three passengers rode back in my boat. It's also a good thing I had lots of rope, he had none, he apparently left it all on the dock when he untied.
I ended up towing him back to his dock and got to inspect the damage close up, he didn't seem to care much, he was too busy screaming at his girlfriend for being upset. The boat was borrowed. I ended up helping two of the women get it up on a trailer, if not I suppose it would have either sunk or at least taken on water from the cracks at the corners of the transom.
I don't suppose that boat ever saw the water again, unless someone was real intent on saving it. I suppose the engine and transom damage would have been enough to total it or deem it unseaworthy if it were insured.
Also from what I saw, it was just pure luck that the engine didn't flip up into the boat, I could see where it had tried, it would have either broke completely free and hung on the controls, or flipped over the bracket and into the boat. It definitely tried to go over. I think if he had hit a bit harder we would have known.
