Well it's been 11 months and we have been thru quite a lot since the last outing.
Oct 15 2016 while running in Minnesota on the "frost your nuts off run", we hit a freak ripple at the wrong angle and spun out at 90 mph. The bow came up, and when it landed , stuck and the stern came out, swapped ends and stopped!!
The GPS speedo was stopped at 87 mph!!
My wife came out of her seat and ended up between the steering wheel and the shifter. She got to spend 9 days in the Mayo clinic with a broke scapula (took out the steering wheel and bent the sea star pro helm 1" shaft), broke 8 ribs (5 ribs had multiple breaks) and punctured a lung.
I broke 3 ribs and my fibula (small bone in right calf). The motor was diagonal on the transom, Jack plate was twisted, Drivers seat mangled, crack in the bow at waterline, and the inner side panel was split. The race trim ram was ripped apart as well.
WE kept this accident pretty quiet as it wasn't one of my prouder moments in life.
We WERE wearing our life jackets and the kill switch was attached. You can see where the kill switch was mounted in the side panel right where the split went.
This is what killed the motor and turned off the fuel pump.
After our 24 hr drive back, I had a couple weeks to start putting the boat back together. Caprice couldn't fly for a month and I had tons of sick leave to attend to her while she was healing up at our Washington place.
I was hobbling around in a "boot" to keep my leg stable unrigging the boat.
I took the seat out and made a new frame (Thank goodness I made templates). Ran over to the upholster and had it repaired.
The motor was pulled and put on a stand. I looked it over very carefully and other than the ram, there was no damage. I had picked up a new ram while in Minnesota so that was replaced.
First thing was to run a jig saw thru the split to remove the splinters and get the panel aligned back.. The split went from the floor to the top of the windscreen then along that edge towards the stern 24".
I ground and glassed the backside then beveled out the front side and glassed that up.
The crack in the bow was right where the foam core ended. This created a weak transition area. This was ground down until no further fractures were seen then glassed up.
After all was ground smooth, I spread some microballoon putty.
A little gelcoat , and polish and it was like it never happened.
Waiting on the new steering wheel. Had a new shaft put in the helm.
