Was this Captain Licensed?

Ha! Did that late-night in a Mustang convertible my dad and I had built into a road race car. My brother was working on Sanibel and I was looking at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. We were running with a V12 Mercedes coupe and a couple of motorcycles. It took us somewhere around 40 or 45 minutes from Naples to Davie, if memory serves.

The good old days, I used to have a 93' Mustang Cobra with 638hp...... Did 140mph from Ft. Pierce to ft. lauderdale with a corvette, bmw, and porsche the entire way......got up to 168mph at one point on I95, the car kept pulling and had plenty of gear left, but started feeling REALLY light and I backed off.......even though the car had a 6 point roll cage and racing harness.......didn't want to test it out......... wouldn't think of doing that anymore.........

There you have it from 3 supposedly mature men (myself included). On the road we created a serious risk to others (ourselves too, but that's our problem). Speed is seductive, but it is also dangerous. We lucked through our stupidity and most wouldn't do those speeds in those places now because we understand the risks and getting caught (or hurting someone) would cost us more than we could afford. We're still allowed to be stupid on the water. It's the last frontier. Some don't understand that the risks are the same on the water (maybe more so), but at least there are still places where our stupidity will only affect us. If we don't choose those places right someone will have to choose them for us.

You can add a fourth you that list. And I did some stupid things on the water in a boat or two in my youth.

Never hurt myself or anyone else. Mostly through luck with a bit a skill thrown in.

It's sad when you hear of some one who continues that behavior into their more "mature" years. But as you say, speed coupled with freedom on the water can be very seductive.

Coupled with alcohol. The tox came in.

Associated Press
Last Updated: 4:09 PM, October 22, 2009
Posted: 11:57 AM, October 22, 2009

A Long Island man was drunk and piloting a powerboat at “excessive speed” as he navigated a twisting channel at night before plowing into marshland, killing three people and critically injuring four others, police said.
</p><br>
An attorney for George Canni’s insurance company on Thursday disputed that alcohol played a role in the accident that killed Canni, 65, his wife and a friend. The attorney, James Mercante, said that buoys that were supposed to mark the channel were either missing, damaged or off station — meaning they were not moored in the correct position.<p>
</p><br>
“Without the buoys to navigate at night, you have no way of determining if you are in the channel or out of the channel,” said Mercante, adding that Canni was an experienced mariner who had owned or operated boats for more than 20 years.<p>
</p><br>
Mercante said his chart indicated that two buoys were off station, two others were missing and a third was damaged on Oct. 4 when Canni’s speedboat, carrying his wife and a group of friends, traversed the Great Island channel and ran aground on Goose Island, south of Massapequa.<p>
</p><br>
“At night when you’re operating on a boat, you rely almost exclusively on buoys to guide the mariner,” said Mercante, a longtime maritime attorney and retired naval reserve captain. “When the buoys are missing or off station it becomes a perilous trap for the mariner.”<p>
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The buoys are owned by the Town of Hempstead. A spokesman for the town did not immediately return a phone message Thursday requesting comment.<p>
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The Nassau County Police Department, which is investigating the boat accident, said that it would make no comment beyond repeating its announcement on Wednesday that Canni had a blood-alcohol level content of 0.08 — the minimum threshold for boating while intoxicated.<p>
</p><br>
The department has also requested toxicology tests to determine whether Canni had drugs or other substances in him at the time of the accident.<p>
</p><br>
Capt. Alan Bregman, who mans a marine-assistance boat off Long Island’s South Shore in the area where the accident happened, said it’s possible that at least one buoy is in the wrong spot and two others are missing in the channel.<p>
</p><br>
He said the buoys were small and unlit, designed to be taken out easily each year. If they had been missing from the channel on Oct. 4, he said “it would definitely make things more difficult” for boaters. But he emphasized that “driving drunk is never a good idea.”<p>
</p><br>
Alcohol was the leading factor in fatal boating accidents nationally last year, according to a recreational boating report by the U.S. Coast Guard. Of the 276 accidents involving alcohol use, 124 of them were fatal. There were a total of 4,789 accidents involving 790 deaths in 2008. Alcohol was also a primary contributing factory in injuries, according to the report.<p>
</p><br>
Also killed in the speedboat accident on Oct. 4, were Canni’s wife, Theresa Maniaci-Canni, 46, and Joseph Sugamele, 50. Survivors were Peter Sofia, 54, of Farmingdale; Tom Sulori, 48; Sulori’s wife, Laura, 54, of Massepequa; and Sugamele’s wife, Deborah, 50. They remain hospitalized at Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow.<p>
</p><br>
George Canni, of Copiague, was the owner of an auto repair shop in Baldwin, N.Y., where a man who answered the phone on Thursday identified himself as a nephew. “I have nothing to tell you,” the man said, refusing to give his name.<p>
</p><br>
Peter Sofia’s 84-year-old mother, Rose Sofia, said that her son was still in the hospital with broken legs. She said he might be coming home in the next few days, and that she had few details about the accident.<p>
</p><br>
She said she had seen Canni at holiday dinners.<p>
</p><br>
“He’s a very responsible person,” she said. “He’s very nice, and caring.”<p>
</p><br>
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rss A Long Island man was drunk and piloting a powerboat at “excessive speed” as he navigated a twisting channel at night before plowing into marshland, killing three people and critically injuring four others, police said.



Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/...in_fatal_O98xPAEEavRMVUpDqCSZNM#ixzz0Vpw0hYq6

Considering that the .08 reading would have been obtained from blood samples some time after the accident and the last drink would probably have been consumed at dinner some time before he'd have probably blown the top off a breatalizer when he turned the key. "God saves fools and drunks". At least this time he saved the boating public.
Lawyers do what they do. Whatever the friend's family doesn't take in court his family's own lawyers will chew up. The screw ups here are legion, but it all started with that drink and too much speed in the hands of a jerk.

We're not arguing the semantics of 0.08 v. 0.09 or 0.085 are we?
If a Captain is on a boat, his BAC should be 0.000. (period) Zero negotiation.

I am not a doctor and only rarely pretend to be one at parties, but ... just the opposite is true.

Post mortem blood alcohol is often much higher than before death. Decomposition, particularly when death occurs from physical violence can lead to rapid (within hours) production of ethanol from internal bacteria. When the level is right at the legal margin there will be no end of medico-legal experts to argue either way.

I was involved in a rescue operation on the Hudson River last year, with one fatality (mentioned in post 35). The surviving individuals and family of the deceased are suing the village for not having lighted buoys and other markers and warning devices on privately owned land in a body of water which has buoys maintained by the USCG. They're also suing the property owner and USCG. Tens of millions of dollars in claims have been filed so far.

It's not surprising that the attorneys would seek to lay blame at the town's doorstep, especially if they maintain the markers and the markers were off station or completely absent without any notice or warning to mariners.

OK, maybe we have to drop the term "captain". This was an idiot with more money than sense; NOT a captain. However, in either case no amount of intoxicants is acceptable when running anything more than a hand organ. Good luck with that though. What can be done is to enact speed restrictions within a reasonable distance from land or other vessels so these fools can be stopped before they have a chance to kill innocent victims.

Inclement weather kills more boaters each year than speed does.

Perhaps we should ban that, at least within a "reasonable" distance from land, as well?

I'll speak with the "boss" about that. In the mean time, this was an idiot who ran recklessly and too fast, on a winding course and through a closed bridge encoumbered with barges and construction equipment, after drinking. I'd be satisfied if I can just be protected from meeting a jerk like this as I round a bend.

Whatt?

It's about as practical of a solution.

Setting a speed limit near shore isn't going to protect anyone from the intoxicated and injudicious. The only thing it will do is push the accidents further offshore and from the realm of reasonable rescue efforts. That end of LI is protected by volunteer agencies, auxiliary units, and paid salvors. Putting the few who incur high risk farther out to sea puts the hardworking volunteers further into harm's way. An isolated incident, or infrequent occurrence at best (boating fatality in that area), shouldn't require a disproportionate reaction. In other words, don't wield a sledgehammer when a scalpel is called for.

I say this as an inshore and near-shore rescue volunteer, not as a speed enthusiast. (I am both.)

In the context used on YF most assume the term "captain" refers to a licensed master performing his job instead of just some guy with more money than sense.
Seafarer, you really need to re-think your argument here. 1) we've had several deaths here from high speed, night bridge strikes, as well as a little girl killed returning from fishing with her dad, and a little girl who watched her father plowed through by a guy who didn't even stop. None of these objects and people were offshore to be hit. 2) this skipper intentionally avoided using the proper bridge because it would put him into a slow speed zone where he'd have to drive prudently or risk being stopped. 3) Rescue workers would much rather go a mile offshore on a calm night (nobody races in 10' seas) if it meant they'd have to deal with carnage and innocent victims less often. Besides, they make that decision as did the jerk. Not so the ones who become the victims. In Florida they protect sea cows by restricting speeds within 500' of land. I'd say that some people's lives are at least as valuable as a sea cow. Look again at the aerial view of that area and picture it littered with a hundred or so small boats at anchor (which it often is). We restrict high speed auto driving to racetracks. We don't allow pistol practice in Times Square.