So your in a late night boating accident.....

[Maine Sail]

So your in a late night boating accident and the boat you collide with just happens to have a US Representative and her high profile husband aboard...

How do you think the investigation would roll if there was a death, and you were using non USCG approved, eg: home made, nav lights......?? Something to think about anyway.. The water taxi is a USCG inspected vessel so we can somewhat assume it meets USCG regs.

If I had to shoot from the hip on this one the guy in the Grady White does not stand a chance even if he was the stand on vessel. I would love to be wrong on this but I have a bad feeling...

Source = Boston.com
"US Rep. Pingree unharmed in Maine boat accident

AP / September 8, 2013


PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree escaped injury in a late-night boating accident in Portland Harbor, but her husband suffered head injuries and required treatment, officials said.


Pingree, husband S. Donald Sussman and four other people were returning from a wedding on Chebeague Island at about 10:30 p.m. Saturday when the water taxi they were on collided with a recreational power boat near Fort Gorges, an island fort near the middle of the harbor, Pingree said in a statement.


Sussman was transported to shore by a city fireboat and then taken by ambulance to Maine Medical Center, where he was treated for cuts and bruises and released, the statement said. He was resting at home Sunday.


Another passenger on the Bay Express water taxi and a person on the Miss M recreational boat were also injured.


‘‘Although it was a scary night, it could have been much worse if it weren’t for the skill and dedication of everyone who responded to the accident,’’ Pingree said in the statement.
The U.S. Coast Guard and the Maine Marine Patrol are investigating.


Both vessels were moving through the water at the time of the crash, but it’s unclear how fast they were going or who was at fault, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Robert Simpson.
‘‘That’s all part of the investigation, to see if everybody had the proper safety equipment and required navigation lights,’’ he said.


Alcohol breath tests on the boat operators came back negative, the Coast Guard said. Alcohol tests are routinely taken in accidents involving commercial vessels.
Besides Pingree and her husband, the water taxi was carrying her chief of staff and his wife and a former staffer and her husband. The former staffer, Jackie Potter, was treated at a local hospital for minor injuries and released.


Sussman is majority owner of Maine Today Media, which owns the Portland Press Herald and two other daily newspapers in Maine."




From the looks of the damage it appears, at first glance, to be a crossing situation. Damage to taxi at stbd bow and damage to Grady on bow.. Course if one vessel was not displaying nav lights....... Who knows....



Image Source = Portland Press Herald

 

[kpgraci]

There's no excuse for that. Someone was asleep at the wheel.

 

[Scott T-Bird]

Considering the collision was with a water taxi, it may not matter who was on board. It's not as if the celebrities could be involved in any fault or would need to be exonerated. Might this simply come down to a fight between insurance companies? If the water taxi was found to be at fault, why would the insurance company of the rec boat settle for any less due process than would normally be required?

If there was a traffic accident involving a regular civilian and a hired limousine driver with celebrities or politicians in the limousine, how would this be any different?

 

[Ross]

If they were both traveling at full speed their lights could have been lost in the back ground of other lights. The lights are supposed to be visible for 1 mile but there is always a possibility of having them occluded by other boats.

 

[RAD]

Texting while boating will cause that

 

[Brian D]

No picture of the water taxi?

 

[Maine Sail]

Considering the collision was with a water taxi, it may not matter who was on board. It's not as if the celebrities could be involved in any fault or would need to be exonerated. Might this simply come down to a fight between insurance companies? If the water taxi was found to be at fault, why would the insurance company of the rec boat settle for any less due process than would normally be required?

If there was a traffic accident involving a regular civilian and a hired limousine driver with celebrities or politicians in the limousine, how would this be any different?

The water taxi is a USCG inspected vessel and as such this forces a USCG investigation not just insurance companies duking it out.

Donald Sussman and his wife are quite politically connected, and quite powerful. If they decide to weigh in on the side of the water taxi I simply don't trust my government to do the "right thing"..... Which I did trust them to do the right thing but in this case, I don't... I certainly hope to be proven wrong on my gut instinct....

 

[Scott T-Bird]

From the picture of the Grady White, it looks like he T-boned the taxi, but it also looks like the speed was below planning speed, otherwise more damage below water line.

My guess is equal fault if the taxi was hit on stbd side. Taxi at fault for not yielding, Rec boat at fault for not avoiding. How the insurance companies settle monetarily, I couldn't guess assuming all other factors are up to snuff ... no alcohol, no recklessness, no safety violations, just 2 boats that didn't see each other in the dark where lighting can be very deceptive.

I've noticed boats on Lake Hopatcong lately with high wattage headlights. I can see them coming for sure to make avoidance hard to miss, but it sure screws up the night vision ... very annoying and I suspect not legal! But they get away with it because enforcement seems to be lax for this type of thing.

 

[Scott T-Bird]

I agree that the USCG will ultimately be the judge. I think that the US Rep has nothing to gain by attempting to influence anything. Why anger the recreational boating community for no good reason? The high profile celebrities have nothing to fear so why should they stick their neck out for the water taxi? There may be a fairly large constituency that look at some of these commercial enterprises as reckless (or at least careless or arrogant) pirates on the water.

But aside from a few cuts and bruises, luckily, there was no catastrophe, so I would guess that from the Reps standpoint, avoiding controversy is the best course.

 

[dscribner]

It'll buff out.

 

[Gunni]

Never hit the boat of a man who buys ink by the barrel !

On the other hand Maryland legislator Don Dwyer just got busted for another DUI. Last year he was drunk stink boatin' (3 times the alcohol limit) with a retired cop and a boat load of kids. He hit someone else at full speed, and put a kid in the hospital with a fractured skull. The irony was he appealed his jail time last month and went out 2 weeks later and got his second DUI.

 

[Kermit]

I dunno. Looks to me that the boat in the picture should have yielded the right of way. The most damage appears to be on the starboard side which means the stand on vessel was to his right. But I'm not an investigator and I don't play one on TV.

 

[Gail R]

Water taxi damage was comparatively minor and on her starboard side.

Considering that, I would suspect shared blame as Scott T-bird surmised. The Grady White, which apparently approached the water taxi from starboard, looks (to me) to have been the stand-on boat. But ... she failed to avoid collision with the water taxi.

Fortunately there were no serious injuries.

 

[Maine Sail]

The Taxi was heading towards Portland from Chebeague Island and was near Fort Georges when it happened. On this course seeing nav lights can be tough as the back drop of both Portland and South Portland are in your field of vision. It could be easy to mistake nav lights for city lights. The Grady was reportedly heading for Peaks Island and they would have had less light pollution to deal with. I will say that I have always seen the water Taxi's properly using their nav lights..

 

[Old Skool Neil]

We've been here before

Search the SBO archives for "Dinius". There are several threads discussing a similar collision where the hapless victim was the only one charged, not the well connected guy who caused the accident. . . . . oh yeah, and by the way KILLED a passenger on Dinius' boat.

I truly hope this one shakes out differently.

 

[MrBill_FLL]

that's quite a hit. I'd say they were lucky the grady didn't sink.


how big was the water taxi?

 

[Maine Sail]

how big was the water taxi?

Most of them are Osprey's...

 

[Ross]

One of the objections I have read concerning Fresnel lenses is the narrow band of light emitted. When the Osprey is running in the bow high configuration seen in the picture do the bow lights show horizontally or at an upward angle?

 

[waternwaves]

if speeds and courses were constant, the apparent position of the other vessel never changed until paint was exchanged, kind of hard to judge the size of small running lights.

It has always been hard for me to believe that operating a power boat can lead to collisions, must have been some pretty high cruising speeds.

I can understand when I am hanging those big rags from my masts.

but have never been close in my powerboats

 

[capta]

I agree with Maine Sail. Political pull has more to do with these sorts of cases than who is right or wrong.
There was a case in Cal of a sheriff who ran over a sailboat and killed someone and the sheriff wasn't even charged. The whole case got so twisted that even though there were multiple witnesses that laid the blame completely on the sheriff, the guy on the sailboat went to jail.
Power and prestige have everything to do with right and wrong in the US these days.
We should not have an elite that is above the law, politicians, LEO's or the very rich.