bad day at dana point harbor memorial day 2013 - boat crash

Every skipper knows that somedays you watch the show and somedays you are the show.

Ladies and gentleman Captain Ray Charles will be piloting your boat today.

Word has it, he is still trying to dock that boat.

All of a sudden I'm in the mood for a big bowl of "Captain Crunch"!

I can't say a while lot. I distinctly remember one evening coming into that exact marina. Dana Point Marina Company, Dana Island Slip C16. It was the night the entire family learned what prop walk is. Similar vessel. We had a 26ft Chris craft cabin cruiser then. Single screw with tiny rudder. Didn't take long to learn how to use it to your advantage. We practiced in the basin near the fuel dock. I got to where I could spin the boat nearly within its own length.

Great way to make new friends at the marina.

This is how I drive boats in Just Cause 2.

the guy hit everything but the lottery

Glad someone actually took a video for insurance claims. This boat operator shouldnt be driving a kayak. It was evident people down the dock were trying to help. I have a large boat and would be grateful of video taken on the dock of events like this. One thing I cant stand is hearing people shout instructions from the dock how to operate their boat. Normally those are the people who never go out anyway. Rock on, and keep the film rolling.

I worked for a boat dealer in D.P. In the late 80’s & early 90’s and we had a famous Hollywood type that couldn’t dock his boat, he would tie it up at the guest dock, leave a $100.00 bill under a bottle of scotch and call me to “park” his boat for him

legend has it he is the ONLY pinball wizard that's never stepped foot in an arcade!

As a 22’ sailboat seeing that is terrifying. Wish I could say I haven’t seen others like it in person. Wow. Just wow!

This man must become a sailing school teacher.

Excellent camera work sir. Top stuff.

what a legend !!!!!!

I've watched many inexperienced skippers try to get in a slip and it's always a show, and that's ok. The guy or gal has to hone their skills somehow. But, at the point the skipper is slamming into other boats, repeatedly, it's time for someone on the dock to board the boat and remove him from the helm.

Love all the sound effects

The problem is obvious to any competent boater. He's trying to turn the wrong way. The boat has a right handed prop, meaning it spins clockwise in forward and counterclock in reverse. The torque this produces cannot be made up for by the rudder, especially at low speed and high throttle. You can see when he's gunning it in reverse he's trying to get the stern to turn away from the dock but it simply will not turn that way even with the rudder hard over. He's trying to do a 180 to get back to his slip. If he had just tried to spin it the other way it would easily whip right around.

First off, the people filming should not jump on the dock to help, because there's clearly already several people on the docks helping and too many would be dangerous (overcrowding the dock). Secondly, the driver of the boat should immediately stop everything their doing. Thirdly, if the goal is to turn the boat around, they should hold one of the boat from the dock and run a line from the other end of that boat and PULL it around. Yes, it's a big boat, but weather and water look calm, so manually pulling it around should be fairly simple as long as the skipper gets the hell away from the controls. To me, it looks like the skipper has had a few too many beers.

several things wrong here. One is the captain here has no idea what he's doing and second people instead of watching should be lending a hand.