Hit and run on the Fox River recently

[drewkaree]

Owner of Sweetwater Marina in Oshkosh, hit and run

@WiskyDan I stumbled across this video, hopefully the link works. REALLY skeevy to see this in real-time, I cannot fathom how he couldn't see the boat, so just how drunk was he?

I may have more info, but thus far, everything is hearsay at this point due to the pending legal issues.

 

[sunbyrned]

Wow! Not surprised though. That’s why I wear life jackets at night. Everything could change in a second.

 

[WiskyDan]

The guy that owns (and was driving) the boat at the time of the accident owns the marina where I dry stack my boat - I have most of the info on what happened. :-/

The boat is a custom painted 45’ Nor-Tech center console with four 450hp Mercury outboards hanging off the back - it’s in the $1.2 million range. The guy owns several businesses in and around Oshkosh and is heavily involved in the boating scene In the area. One stupid mistake is gonna land him in prison and crap away a life’s worth of hard work.

I’ll post more a bit later.

 

[WiskyDan]

So apparently what happened at the end of that video is the power boat circled back towards the camera and continued east. The marina and restaurant that the guy owns are about 100 yards east of the camera position which I believe is on the Jackson Street bridge. A couple hundred yards farther east of the restaurant is Riverside Park where he pulled over to assess damage. Some guy seems to have have followed him by car down the river and the story is he approached the boat on foot and told him to stay put - the cops are on the way. He then pulled away from the sea wall, went a couple hundred more yards to the entrance of Lake Winnebago, turned south, entered Pioneer Marina (which is right at the turn), parked the boat, and walked away.

 

[WiskyDan]

From what I’ve been able to gather (ongoing criminal investigation so I’m not gonna type much) and from the video, I can think of three things that contributed to the collision:

- Driver of power boat (allegedly) had too much to drink.
- Driver of power boat going too fast.
- The On the Loos Cruise boat lights blending in with the Ohio Street bridge lights a bit. When the video first started I didn’t even notice the Loos Cruise boat as it’s moving very slow and there doesn’t appear to be a bow wake.

I initially thought that maybe he didn’t get up on plane and maybe the bow was riding high which may have blocked some of his view. After watching the video a few times it appears that he was on plane and it shouldn’t have been a contributing factor.

The power boat owner was caught on surveillance video at the restaurant that he owns with some kind of drink in his hand right before the collision so it’s pretty clear he was drinking. His lawyer stated that anything could have been in his glass - uh huh. :-/

My guess is that the cops are trying to get one of the guests that were on his boat, and/or the servers/bartenders at the restaurant, to flip in regards to possible alcohol consumption.

I’m expecting the marina to be under new ownership next season or maybe I’ll be docking somewhere else.

 

[tkeru408]

There appears to be zero evasive maneuvering by the Nor-Tech just prior to the collision, no change in speed or course whatsoever. Based on that, I'd guess he thought he was alone on the water and wasn't looking where he was going at the time of the collision. Entirely possible alcohol contributed to his distraction. Either way, he was definitely going too fast and not paying attention. Hopefully none of those injured were injured too seriously.

 

[scokill]

Gotta keep your head on a swivel at all times. I was driving across our bridge yesterday glancing out at the boat traffic and saw a girl int he water waving her arms frantically to avoid getting hit by a pontoon boat. She had been surfing and her surf boat was right by her. Scary stuff.