The first is about a tv celebrity, O'Leary from the show "Shark Tank" -- seems this happened in CANADA -- his "boat" (yacht) hit another boat in the dark. O'Leary says the other boat did NOT have their running lights on so they simply were not seen.
The brother or son of the owner of the second boat claims the lights WERE in fact ON and that OLeary's boat was negligent in not watching for other craft (a generic term which includes everything from 2-seater paddle boats to Cruise ships to Aircraft Carriers to a dugout canoe)
So why is a boating accident in the news?? 2 people aboard the other boat have been killed ... the owner of the boat (aged 61) and a woman (aged 46) ...
It maybe that BOTH sides are telling the truth ... here's why
There could actually be a FEW reasons for this statement:
1)In the dark it is hard to tell distance, so it might be that the O'Leary craft haughty the other was farther away when really it wasn't
2)size difference -- it happens on the road all the time -- when you are higher up in a vehicle you have a much larger "blind spot" than other vehicles ... same in a boat - the bigger the vehicle, the bigger the the care you must take to look for smaller craft
3)Age of Boat -- newer boats have running late gots which pretty much surround the boat, I mean they look like stage lights in the dark .... but older boats might have only three Running Lights for night cruising - one on the back and two small dim ones on the front.
If you are in a boat with tons of lights you aren't likely to pay attention for a boat with dimmer light gets -- hell, you may not even realize there can be boats with much dimmer lights.
4)Wake -- this is the disturbance in the water caused when a craft moves ... they ALL produce one, just some are large rectangular than others -- a famous Wake story is one nvolvong the launch of the Titanic, the draw of Her propellers was so great that a moored ship (I want to say the SS New York, irony) was nearly drawn INTO those propellers by the wake they produced. Many people think of Wakes as a pushing OUT of water, but if you get a large enough propeller it also refers to the water drawn INTO them.
It could gen that either O'Leary's craft had a large enough propeller that it drew the craft in (I didn't hear how they hit) and they collided ... oooorrrr ... it could be that the other boat was PUSHED by the outgoing wake of a third craft that has not yet been identified into O'Leary's craft.
I'm really leaning towards the lighting issue though ...
We really noticed the difference this 4th of July -- the newer boats were lit like a house where our older 1990s boat looked like an old pre-LED flashlight ...
BUT we will have to wait for the investigation to be carried out, before we will know for sure what caused the crash.
Meanwhile -- two people are dead and I'm sure lawyers will be lining up to go after O'Leary ...
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