Miami Government Cut Boating Accident; Jose Fernandez

Early Reports don't state who was driving but the boat was reported to be a local boat owned by a local guy familiar with the area. It's not like that jetty popped out of nowhere and that 32 see vee had to have had a GPS and most likely radar

They were heading south along the shoreline so it's not like they could have gotten confused by lights on the shore line... Don't understand how they try to take a short cut like that

They must have been doing closer to the 50 knots, unless nobody could swim. It's a shame, but tons of people think they can run really fast at night......I could see doing just on plane in a boat like that if you have VERY good visibility at night..... but then again, the Jetty didn't jump out in front of them.

no excuse, but the lites that you see from offshore at Gov.Cut are confusing unless you know the area very well.... navigation lites are equivilent to candles when you are looking at the backdrop of down town Miami...sorta like a ship coming into N Y at nite,all lit up so the crew an uncover cargo and hatches....try to find their navigation lites....cruise ships are worst..

If they were heading south along the beach, the back drop behind the cut would look very dark. I do not know what that would look like at night as I only been through the cut in shipping lanes.

If you're heading due South and that close to the beach (say parallel 1/2 a mile offshore) you would not see any lights in the background, at high tide the jetties only stick up 2-3' from the water.

USCG believes the accident happened at full speed (so around 60 mph), here is some footage and video of the boat upside down on the jetty, the bow is HEAVILY damaged
http://wsvn.com/news/local/3-people-killed-in-boat-crash-at-government-cut/

Interesting, I looked up the tides and it was a 4:46AM high tide at the cut. The vessel was found around 3 am.

If that thing did a few summersaults and threw the occupants on the rocks it was game over. Right then and there.

“Experience is a harsh teacher: She gives the test first and then teaches the lesson later.”

k

IF.

The backgrounds d is certainly dark when running south bound along the beach but there is still some fain lights from fisher islands and bind that from key biscayne. Even on a moonless night, as in this case, you should spot the jetty.

Problem is that half the boaters out there don't understand that they need to dim their electronics to preserve their night vision. I've had a few close calls at night with such idiots that were so blinded by their electronics that they couldn't see a farily large and well lit boat till the last minute.

Speaking of which, in the one picture that's online that was taken at night, all of the bright blue courtesy lights under the gunnel are all still on, as well as the nav lights.

THE biggest gripe I have about modern electronics. You can't dim them down enough. I've used film (like car window tinting) overlays on them and still couldn't get my eyes to where I wanted them......

That said as a professional aviator I know countless stories where they were doing it right and still ended up somewhere else than they thought they were......

Here but for the grace.......

Real easy to "investigate the accident" from behind a keyboard.

The time doesn't bother me. We have come home many many times at 3am (or later) whether on personal date nights or on charter. Evenings on the water in miami are beautiful....

I really won't be surprised when toxicology numbers are released.

Jose Fernandez is a die hard fisherman and that would explain the time if he was out sword fishing or bottom fishing. In one of his photo's is an entire wall collage of photo's of fish he has caught.

Yeah, I never run over 10ktd at night unless conditions are such that visibility is good enough, like heading towards a lit area or full moon or on the bank where I know the is no traffic,

Problem around miami are all the idiots with missing lights. Half the boats I see out there at night are missing At least one running light, usually the stern.

Couple of month ago we were returning to the grove from marine stadium anchorage, around 2 or 3 am, running 9 kts south of the key biscayne causeway when the radar picked up a faint stationary echo, 1/2 mm off. As it got closer I looked and saw nothing until we got maybe 100 yards away and saw two guys in a 16ish skiff fishing with lights what so ever... Anyone running 2o to 25 kts on plane with no radar would have run them over.