Boat accident lessons...

Andrew--He didn't stop. I'm not even sure he knew what he hit. Probably drunk. It was a weekend evening.

Couple of years ago I took a boating safety course with my son. Couldn't believe the number of weird accidents that happen on the river. One of the oddest was a guy who had never driven a boat before: took off from shore, hit the throttle, not realizing he had the steering wheel hard right, did a sharp u-turn right back into the shore and ended up on top of another boat. Nobody was hurt, but could easily have killed a few people. Totalled two boats in 5 seconds.

Rick
 
That really sucks hope it all turns out ok. About insurance, dont forget the stuff in the boat. I insured my boat, have liability and I insured what is in the boat as far as personal property. Guns are expensive and so is all the other gear we haul around. My daughter-in-law is a state farm insurance agent she has made sure that I am covered well. And it really doesnt cost that much to do it properly.
 
A couple kids were doing "power dives" off a boat at one of our lakes. That is where you get it going full speed, hit the key and jump out. It was a 16' with a newer 135 Merc and went pretty fast. The kid driving didn't quite hit the key when they bailed and the boat was unmanned doing about 40. It did a half circle around the lake and went up into a yard full of people having a wedding reception...a-la James Bond. No one was hit and the boat sat there digging dirt with the prop till the motor blew. The yard it went into belongs to a buddy of mine and my best bud lives across the lake. It made a hell of a racket I guess.
 
The upside of the bad economy is that parents won't be able to afford to give their kids those kinds of toys anymore. Darwin took the afternoon off that day.
 
John, thanks for the reminder.

On most homeowner policies, boats are covered up to 16' that includes motor/trailer/liability without having to schedulet them. BUT, once the boat is over 16' they need to be scheduled and you then have an increased fee. They will want the serial numbers of the boat, motor, trailer.

You need to check with your own personal home owners policy, but coming from my agent who has been in the biz 33 years this is how is usually works. But as Andrew pointed out, wooden boats are different.
 
There are exclusions on the Standard State Farm home owners policy including and outboard over 25hp, there are numerous other ones as well. I seem to be covered because I don't own the boat nor did I rent it. Don't ask me, but by the way the exclusions are written, a borrowed boat isn't excluded regardless of horse power. I'm trusting my lawyer on this, but crossing my fingers just to be sure.

BTW, for those who have asked about my buddy; he ended up with two broken ribs, and two front teeth knocked out. His broken ribs, front and back on on. led to some internal bleeding that collapsed a lung. All told he was in the hospital for five days. He is now fully healed except the teeth and he is having those fixed as we speak. We are still good friends and have assured each other that, whatever our insurance companies do in the way of back and forth law suits, that is them and not us, and we are determined to remain friends. He as already reserved a spot on my boat's inaugural duck hunt next year.

Thank you for all of your non-judgemental post. When the time comes for me to lay out all of the details, you may see this as a "but for the grace of God" thing, but inches either way would have been death for us both on one side or a close call "Holy S---" on the other. One other thing, both of us remarked that if we had been in a standard aluminum boat, it would have folded up like tin foil putting us both in ice cold water in the pre-dawn darkness. My Golden Yoda would have likely been the only survivor in that case. My buddy is well over 300 lbs. to heavy for me to pull out of the water, but I would have died trying. The over built Devlin Snow Goose, had some damage, but was totally seaworth, even holding five large firefighters who stood in the boat, pulling by large buddy out.

John
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top