Dinghy Crash!

the "crime scene" the day after, damaged dock by dinghy

Nope not me! But we had a serious crash last evening right behind our boat. 

A guy was speeding with his very fast dink through the harbor after dark. All of a sudden we heard a very loud crash and then a motor going into high rpm. When I checked with the spotlight I could see a guy in the water and his dink on a dock opposite us, engine still yelling. There was a part of an old wooden dock drifting in the water and the guy was running full speed into it, no way you could see it in the dark!  When I finally launched the dink (I had it on the davits with the motor on) the guy had made it already to shore, but his dink was gone. He had a center console with a steering wheel which was ripped off by the impact and he flew over the whole boat into the water. Thankfully he did not hit the piece in the water - it was covered with rusty nails where it was once attached to shore. But still, he was hurt. Since the harbor patrol was alert there was not much to do from our side, except of warning the next dink which was coming full speed around the corner. Would be a heck of a night if they crashed as well. The poor guy and the leftover of his boat was finally picked up by the harbor control boat which showed up amazingly fast - maybe the owners of the drifting dock?? At least they took that murder piece with them as well...

Yep, even if I still love to rush our dink to the limits I now will for sure take care after dark and keep the engine security strap on. I have to admit I'm sometimes lazy with that. If I ever will fly out of the boat the engine will at least stop and not like in this case run away full throttle!