The most scared I've been on a boat......

I have to share what happened to me Saturday, for hopes it may educate someone, anyone, to not do what happened to me on Saturday. Although everything turned out OK, I'm still having nightmares about it.

To start, I consider myself to be an experienced boater. I may only be 27, but I've been on the water since I can remember, am the only one many of my friends let drive their boat, have worked on boats, set up ballast systems and stereo's - the works.

A friend of mine with an 04 X2 asked me to come out with him for a saturday morning session. He was considering (and now has gotten started on) an upgraded ballast system, and asked me to bring my sac's with me to load it down to what he was thinking. I am out with an injury right now, so for me, this was a morning on the lake, driving the boat and coaching - Works for me!

Anyway, we got the boat loaded down with the sacs I brought and had to throw 3 people in the bow to get it down (horseshoe sac is in the mail). All 3 were adults, with one of which being the owner of the boat.

Here is where things went wrong.

The rider fell, and as I released off the throttle, apparently the person sitting on his knees in the very front of the bow was not paying attention, off balance, and not holding onto anything all at the same time. As a well weighted boat does when it comes off plane (a little too quick, had more people weight than I had accounted for) it felt like we hit the breaks. He fell across the bow, and went into the water directly in the middle of the boat.

I immediately dropped the boat to neutral, and in hindsight, should have shut it off, but didn't. The nose took on who knows how much water, and the owner and I went into panic. We were looking everywhere around the boat, no bubbles, no blood, nothing. About 10 seconds after we came to a full stop, he popped out of the water about 30 feet behind the boat - Laughing.

The amount of relief I had is immeasurable. I was positive I had just killed this kid I had just met, but here he came, without a scratch on him. I can't thank god enough. He said it was his fault for not paying attention or holding on, and when he hit the water he was smart enough to swim straight down. I still can't imagine we missed him by much.

It still bothers me how I could have let this happen. Like I said above, I consider myself an experienced boater, and yet, I nearly killed someone. I'm not proud of it, just thankful the big man was looking out for us all this weekend. Please, everyone, if you've got riders in the bow. Be the prick who yells at them, makes sure they're holding on, or in a position they're not going to move when you come off plane. Learn from my mistake and near tragedy.