Lake Tahoe Tragedy 2 Lost

Not sure if this was posted, but came across it, 9 people in a rental 21 1/2-foot Sport Nautique!?!?! WTF That means that probably 2 of them were in the open bow, in 4 foot waves, with an inexperienced operator, they didn't have a chance. The rental place is probably screwed on this one.

Jeff DeLong
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
8/7/2003 10:57 pm
Charles A. Sauer Jr., his wife Janis Sauer and their two teenage children looked forward to their annual summer trip from the Bay Area to Lake Tahoe, a neighbor said.

On Thursday, the children mourned the death of their father, and their mother was still missing after a boating accident a day earlier.

“They always look so forward to it because they like Tahoe so much,” said Patricia Cauterucci, a San Carlos, Calif., resident who was watching the Sauer home across the street while they were away.

“They were very nice people. We were just talking to them Sunday,” Cauterucci said. “This is terrible, just terrible.”

Searchers today are set to continue combing the waters and shores of Lake Tahoe for Janis Sauer, 50, but acknowledged she’s likely dead and that her body might never be found.

Her husband, 53, was killed Wednesday when a rented ski boat containing his wife, two children and five other friends or family members capsized in choppy waters, authorities said Thursday.

The cause of the accident was not immediately clear, but authorities said lake was raked by up to 4-foot waves at the time.

An investigator said the 21 1/2-foot Sport Nautique, a shallow-draft vessel loaded to maximum capacity with nine passengers, might have flipped in the high waves.

“I think it was an inexperienced operator in pretty serious storm conditions,” Fred Messmann, boating law administrator for the Nevada Division of Wildlife, which is investigating the accident.

“I think they just got caught in the waves and they took over,” Messmann said.

The couple’s two teenage children were among the seven rescued after witnesses spotted their overturned ski boat bobbing in waters off of Cave Rock, four of them clinging to the vessel’s hull and the others in the water nearby.

All but one survivor was released after treatment at Barton Memorial Hospital. The other was listed in good condition Thursday. Authorities declined to provide the names of the survivors.

All nine people were members of two Bay Area families who regularly vacationed at Lake Tahoe in the summer, sharing a house, Cauterucci, said.

Charles Sauer was employed in the computer industry and his wife is a schoolteacher, Cauterucci said.

“I can’t believe this,” she said.

Douglas County Sheriff Ron Pierini said searchers combed the waters by boat and helicopter throughout much of Thursday, but that search boats left in the afternoon when windy conditions whipped up water much like the day of the accident.

Tahoe’s shoreline also was searched along a wide band of the lake stretching roughly from the Glenbrook area south to the edge of the Stateline casino strip, Pierini said. The search is scheduled to resume this morning and continue until at least the afternoon, Pierini said.

Charles Sauer was found floating face-down and wearing a life preserver. Janis Sauer also was reported to be wearing a floatation device but that is unconfirmed, Pierini said. It’s possible that if she was wearing one, it may have come off after the accident, the sheriff said.

Authorities said first reports were received about 6:30 p.m. of the capsized boat, which left Sunnyside Marina shortly after 2 p.m. Officials said the victims may have spent several hours in the water, and several showed symptoms of hypothermia.

The group was planning a four-hour trip from Sunnyside to Emerald Bay and officials said they aren’t sure why they ended up on the other side of the lake near Cave Rock.

“It wasn’t where they were supposed to be,” said Chief Ray Holcombe of the Lake Tahoe station of the U.S. Coast Guard.

Lee Schmidt, owner of High Sierra Water Ski School, which rented the boat to the victims, also expressed surprise.

“That’s quite a ways off course,” Schmidt said. “I’m at this point not sure exactly what happened.”

Schmidt said the accident was the first of its type in his business’s 26-year history.

“It’s not good for morale, obviously,” Schmidt said. “It was just basically your all-American family coming to Tahoe to recreate. It’s a major tragedy and it’s very, very sad.”

what a disaster. i cant stop thinking about the fact that the family went on vacation to have fun and the kids lost both their parents. horrible.

Wow... I was out in Lake Tahoe at the time this article was published. I guess that would explain the helicopter we saw constantly circling along the shore lines. What a bummer to hear that.