Glad to hear from you! My wishes for a speedy recovery for both you and the boat. I hope you'll post up the final cause of the crash. Good luck!
CC
I've had 4 200 pound plus guys on the deck of my 21 with zero deflection. IMO there is only one other boat built that was built as sturdy as a Schiada but I guarantee you could not get one today. So that leaves Schiada.
Just for the record doesn't the government award contracs to the lowest bidder? :idea:
My pain pills make everything a little blurry so sorry ahead of time if this is a little jarbled. We werent speeding or doing any odd maneuvers, we were just crusing along at about 45-55 mph. The boat tilted vertical on the drivers side then back to the passengers side then as it came back to the drivers side the boat flipped over. All of us are very lucky to be alive with me having the most serious injuries (Damn steering wheel) The steering wheel broke my right femur and damaged my left knee and messed up my lower legs pretty bad. We still havent found out the cause of the crash, whether it was the trim tabs that failed (They had been worked on the day before) or was it just a rough wave that sent my boat into spasm. Ive had the boat for 4 years and it has done some funny stuff like high side before but nothing like this. Its amazing we are alive but trajic that my boat is so damaged. There goes 100 grand. I gaurantee ill be back out on the water but in a larger boat and not in a tunnel. Probably a 24 schiada.
wow.. that had to be a hell of a ride.
hope your injuries heal quick.
So the insurance company has narrowed it down to what I thought in the beggining. One of the trim tabs popped (the line bursted) throwing the boat up on its side. With the boat on its side (no drive in the water) and some chop there was no recovery. The boat was serviced the day before for the trim tabs failing at Lake Havasu Marina.
I saw the boat at the Marina when it was being serviced. Beautifull boat, what a shame.
Glad to see you and your passengers came out of the ordeal OK.
Boston Whalers are pretty much garbage boats. I know, I worked on them, in them and around them for years in the Navy. They are only "unsinkable" because they every single void where you could have storage is full of two part foam, making them heavy and very, very difficult to repair.
They are laminated with a chopper gun, well regarded among the very worst ways to build a boat. Thick, and stupid. Cleats pull out like it is their job, any hit amounts to serious repair of the fiberglass surfaces... made twice as fun with the flotation foam inside of the repair. That foam FYI disintigrates in the presence of styrene, one of the fluid components of fiberglass resin, turning it into goo.
They won't take much power before starting a wild porpoise, need tabs with the slightest mismatched load port to starboard and have essentially zero storage on board.
The tooling is rough, at best, and there is lots of transfer where the rough plywood bulkheads, where they even existed, came in contact with the boats surface. We were always having problems with radar hoops and motor bumpers getting ripped out upon impact as well.
They were rigged poorly from the factory, had myriad electrical failures from a poorly designed and protected system and were always missing movements from failures.
Other than that, they are great...
Pretty much sums it up.
Darrell.
http://www.boatingmag.com/assets/image/630200316309.jpg
One of my buddies, who is in the Coast Gaurd, tried to stop some drug runners in a 42' fountain a couple of years back in one of those. His little boat looked like that when they were done with it.
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