50ft houseboat makes u turn in havasu channel
 

http://youtu.be/bgL_z_Z6BRo

No idea what this guy was thinking. From what I've heard no one was hurt but he hit about 5 boats and was arrested for a reckless endangerment. I didn't film the video. ***there is quite a few f bombs from people in the channel** but figured I would share. Kind of sad that people only yelled and threw beers at the guy instead of trying to help him out. Yelling and throwing things would only make me more nervous and more likely to make the situation worse if I were the driver of the houseboat.

Posting this from my phone so Im not sure how to embed the video. Sorry.

What an idiot............. But entertaining...

Wait a minute. Are you telling me, that there was an idiotic boat driver at havasu? On a holiday weekend? Shocking!

Tons of idiot boat drivers out there. Even on a non holiday weekend. This however I feel is an entirely different level of stupidity lol.

Like they say down here.... "Son.... Your a special kind of stupid"

lmao!

so much roid rage, lol

i don't get the allure of standing around in a canal. prob urine canal too.

There's a cameraman with a future!

Party Crasher...
noob in a boat 40' bigger than whats he used to

Great advertisement for adding some thrusters to your houseboat.

Right on. To bad there wasn't a good ripping current and some wind.

Bad situation all around..

But besides that... that looks like an awful awful time. A billion drunk idiots.

Surely not my definition of a lake trip.

I love going to the river and to havasu but I stay away on busy weekends whether all my friends are going or not. Ps I wasn't there when this happened. I just found the video and wanted to share it.

No idea what's going on in that video besides bad driving and drunk people. Can someone familiar with Havasu draw a diagram or something? Looks like he turned around twice...where'd he come from?

Yeah.. Is that a dead end channel?

^ It is not.

Is that headed towards the bridge or away, either way there's wider water ahead to turn around.

That guy must have eaten a whole sack of retard sandwiches before he attempted that.

I beleive he was headed towards the bridge.

For those who have no idea what we're talking about, if this boat was indeed headed towards the bridge you can see that the chanel opens up and turning would be easy.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ly...8wydo1_500.jpg

turn around yeah but that guy had no business in the narrow portion of the channel, he couldn't even navigate the corners

I'm pretty sure there are signs on both ends of the channel saying no boats allowed in over I think 36 ft.

I am not confident the driver of the houseboat was the most disappointing person in that video....maybe not even top 5....

I see several things here that make me raise questions...

1 - Is the boat having mechanical issues? Very early in the video the driver is giving far more power than I think is necessary as seen by the water rolling from the stern multiple times. After they are turned around and seem to be all good, for no reason they drift into the boats on shore. Could it be the engines didn't want to run at lower RPMs or kept shuting down? Maybe this lead to him being in that part of the channel in the first place. He may just be a really bad driver.

2 - Looking at the trees he was fighting a 10MPH or better wind. Houseboats have next to nothing for draft given their size, but a bunch a freeboard effectivly making them sailboats in any wind.

3 - There is a current that looks to be mioving the same direction as the wind. These 2 factors greatly affect manuvering a boat that size in such a tight area!

4 - Why didn't they just back out instead of turning around? They could have placed a spotter towards the stern to help give direction and watch for a clear path.

Given these possible factors and the fact that there were tons of people yelling, throwing objects, and in general adding stress to an already stressful situation... I think the driver did well! I'm not justifying him, just looking at the video in a different perspective. Could the driver have been drunk or just plain didn't have any business behind the wheel? Sure, but I think the outcome would be much worse in that case.

Almost looks like the outdrive is up too far.

The other forum that I found the video on had a copy of the police report. Here ya go:


On 5/25/2013 Donald W. Jackson out of Whittier California was arrested at 1000 N. McCulloch Blvd. (Nautical Resort) for Negligent Operation of a Watercraft after he was identified as the operator of a house boat (65 FT in Length and 14.2 FT Wide) which cause numerous collisions in the Bridgewater Channel. A vessel of this size is prohibited from traveling through the Bridgewater Travel due to the size of the channel and amount of traffic traveling through.

?

As the houseboat approached the area near sign #3 it caused a collision with another boat which was moored on the east shoreline. Jackson was able to operate away from the collision and continued traveling northbound. Due to the wind the houseboat was being pushed into the east bank of the channel nearly colliding with several additional moored vessels. Jackson attempted to correct for the wind which caused the houseboat to turn very hard to the left side, as the boat turned the rear had another collision with two additional moored vessels.

At that point, officers pulled behind the houseboat and closed the channel from the Southbound Traffic. While doing so, they observed several people who were on or close to the boats where the houseboat was heading had to run away or drive into the water to avoid being struck. The houseboat was now heading West into the bank of the channel where several more vessels moored. Jackson (the operator) attempted to avoid collisions with the vessels in front of him but was unable to do so. He collided with two more vessels which were moored on the west bank. Several people were nearly thrown from the vessels which were struck. Officers observed several other people who grabbed onto the front of the houseboat and held onto the front railing in order to avoid being pushed into the water.

Due to this collision the operator put the houseboat into reverse and nearly caused another collision into vessels which were behind it on the east bank. The operator was able to get the house boat to head southbound and maintain direction at that time. Officers followed the house boat with emergency lights and sirens on out of the channel. While following the houseboat, officers recognized it to be a rental boat from the Nautical resort Boat Rental Company (Havasu 19). Officers on another marked patrol boat and MCSO escorted the boat out into Thompson Bay.

Approximately 5 MCSO Patrol Boats as well as the SBSO boat assisted LHCPD in escorting the house boat towards the Nautical Resort. All patrol boats had emergency lights and occasional sirens on to alert the operator to stop. The operator continued to travel out of Thompson Bay and out of the No Wake Zone. It was at that time it appeared the operator was not understanding that Law Enforcement wanted him to stop. A deputy from MCSO and LHCPD boarded the house boat and contacted the operator (Jackson) who advised he didn?t realize he had hit any boats and thought they were giving him a police escort out of the area.

Jackson stated he was drifting into Thompson Bay when he realized he was to close to the channel and he needed to turn around. By the time he realized he needed to turn there was too much traffic and he did not have the room. Due to the traffic and the wind he decided to try and go through the channel. He did not intentionally go into the channel and is aware that Houseboats are not allowed in the channel.

A representative of the Houseboat Rental Company was brought to the houseboat by MCSO. They determined that the steering on the houseboat was disabled and it could only make left turns at this time. It was discovered that due to the manner that Jackson was attempting to maneuver it caused the right steering to malfunction. Sea Tow was contacted to tow the boat into the Nautical Docs. Once at the docs, Jackson was placed under arrest without incident for Negligent Operation of a Watercraft. Jackson was transported to the Police Department where he was booked and held for court.

Was Zoolander on board?

Oh wait... He can't go left...

The wind was the big issue. 40mph winds and a sail of a boat through a tiny channel would be hard for an operator of any skill level.

" It was discovered that due to the manner that Jackson was attempting to maneuver it caused the right steering to malfunction."

So him trying to turn caused it break? Can anyone explain this? Although this was his fault, not being able to turn in one direction does not help.

He just needed a bigger boat, duhh

I think it was the fact that he ran the lower units into one or more boats that caused it to only turn one direction.

I owned a 72' houseboat for a while that had no thrusters. It was TERRIFYING to drive anywhere near a marina in ANY wind. We only took it out on very calm days.