yacht crash

Briton dies and six injured after yacht crashes into rocks off Italian coast

Authorities believe the "Amore" yacht had been sailing parallel to another boat when, for reasons that are unclear, it veered away suddenly and hit rocks.

Foreign news reporter @MikeRDrummond

Monday 1 August 2022 17:40, UK

A British man died and six people were injured after a yacht ran aground on rocks off the coast of Italy, possibly as it tried to avoid crashing into another boat.

The 63-year-old owner of the 70ft boat - whose name has not been released - suffered a heart attack after the vessel crashed in waters near the Sardinian seaside resort of Porto Cervo on Sunday night, according to Italian media.

Authorities believe the "Amore" yacht had been sailing parallel to another boat when, for reasons that are unclear, it veered away suddenly and hit rocks near the island of Rocche, south of the Li Nibani islands.

The man was reportedly thrown into the water and rescued by a boat flying under the Maltese flag which was nearby.

With the assistance of the coastguard he was taken in by medical staff but they were unable to revive him.

The other six people who had been aboard the "Amore" were rescued by a third boat and transported to the Porto Cervo port.

Four were taken to the emergency room, two in serious condition, Italian media say.

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The wreck of the "Amore" was found half-sunk and has been recovered by authorities.

Read more: Briton fatally struck by helicopter blade while on holiday in Greece named as Jack Fenton British man found dead in Crete after lying motionless on sunbed for hours

The UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) says it is working with Italian agencies.

An FCDO spokesperson said: "We are providing support following a maritime accident in Sardinia, including to the family of a dual national who has died. We are in contact with the local authorities."

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British man killed and six people injured in Sardinia yacht crash

Yacht reportedly crashed into rocks when swerving in attempt to avoid collision with another vessel

A British man has reportedly died and six people were injured after a yacht sailing near a resort in Sardinia crashed into rocks on Sunday.

The 63-year-old man reported to be the owner of the 21-metre yacht was unconscious but still alive when he was rescued by the Italian coastguard of Olbia and Porto Cervo. However, first responders said he died immediately after.

According to initial reports, the yacht crashed into rocks after it suddenly swerved in an attempt to avoid a collision with another vessel.

Police and coastguards were both investigating the incident, which occurred at about 8.40pm on Sunday near Li Nibani island, close to Porto Cervo.

Seven people were onboard. Among the injured, two are in a serious condition. Their nationalities have not been disclosed yet. The yacht, flying a Maltese flag, was eventually recovered and towed to Porto Cervo. It has been impounded by local police and will be held in Sardinia during the investigation.

The area in which the crash took place is being guarded by the Italian coastguard. The name of the boat has not yet been disclosed.

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After an $800k yacht pileup in Ballard Locks, a fleet of lawyers arrives

Jason Formo figures he’s been through the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in Ballard at least a hundred times in his 43 years. But none of that prepared him for the chaos of late last May or the complicated legal fight just now getting underway. 

Shortly before noon on May 28, 2022, Formo and several family members were aboard his 53-foot motor yacht, Nor’Wester, in the larger of the two locks, waiting for the gate to open. 

It was a busy Memorial Day Saturday, and big boats like Formo’s were tied along the southeastern wall, with rows of smaller boats “rafted” off their starboard sides.

The gate had just started opening, Formo and other boaters say, when the Pamina, a 64-foot yacht directly ahead of Nor’Wester, gunned its engines and went hard in reverse. 

Amid the roar of diesels and the snapping of mooring lines, Pamina slammed into Nor’Wester “like a bulldozer,” striking with such force that Nor’Wester’s bow went over Pamina’s stern and into a rear cabin, Formo says. 

Behind him, in a very expensive illustration of Newton’s third law, Formo’s 53-foot motor yacht struck a 60-foot motor yacht, which struck a 59-foot motor yacht, which was pushed into the lock’s eastern gate, according to interviews and court filings.

Meanwhile, the smaller rafted vessels caromed off one another like “bumper boats,” as one yachting insider later put it. 

No serious injuries were reported, but a total of eight vessels were “ allided ,” to use the nautical term, causing upward of $800,000 in damage before Pamina’s captain, Brian Pickering of Seattle, managed to kill the engines.

In the relative calm that followed, Formo recalls Pickering apologizing profusely, but also “a fair amount of expletives” as other dazed sailors tried “to figure out what had happened.”

A year later, a small armada of boat owners, insurers, marine businesses and more than a dozen attorneys are trying to sort out that very question.

Admittedly, the lawsuit — essentially, a dispute among insurers over the bill for all that cracked fiberglass and teak — won’t be the weightiest matter heard in federal court in Seattle.

But it could be among the more complex, given the awkwardly large number of parties and the peculiarities of U.S. maritime law — to say nothing of the mechanics of what was arguably the biggest pileup in the history of Seattle yachting. 

A multivehicle crash is “something you see on a freeway, with cars, but not with vessels,” says Charles Moure, a Seattle maritime law attorney (and avid boater) who is following the Pamina case but is not involved. “You’re going to get into some complicated litigation.” 

Indeed, while a trial is more than a year off, court filings so far point to a dispute that has the same bumper-boat dynamics of the accident itself.

Start with the owners and insurers of the allided boats. 

Most have declined to discuss the case. But the four who’ve filed claims put fault largely on Pamina, a 40-ton, $700,000 luxury vessel, with three paneled staterooms, a full-size galley and more horsepower than a D10 Caterpillar bulldozer that is owned, through a limited liability corporation, by Pickering and his wife, Laurie Pickering, who was also aboard during the accident.

Pamina was operating “without sufficient competent crew,” states a Feb. 23 filing by Seattle resident Nicholas Leede, whose 39-foot sailboat suffered $62,117 in damage while rafted in the back row. 

Brian Pickering “was not at the helm” just before the crash, contends a Feb. 28 filing by Anahit Hovhannisyan, a Mercer Island resident whose 60-footer was two boats back from Pamina.

Hovhannisyan hasn’t yet specified repair costs, but does claim to have “suffered personal injury and mental distress” after being “narrowly missed by an airborne cleat that was detached in the incident.”

Formo has claimed $206,554 in damage, while a fourth owner, William Hansen, has claimed damage of $162,922 to his 59-footer.

The Pickerings and their insurer, meanwhile, lay out a very different narrative: Pamina, they say, went into reverse more or less on its own.

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According to filings, various control systems, including controls for Pamina’s engines and remote controls for its engines and bow thruster, “failed to operate properly.” 

In due course, the Pickerings and their insurer have filed claims against two controls manufacturers and two Seattle-area marine businesses that serviced Pamina shortly before the crash. 

Those “third-party defendants” aren’t sitting still, of course. 

Delta Marine Industries, a shipyard that worked on Pamina, alleges that any damage was “caused, contributed to or enhanced by [the Pickerings’] own comparative fault, gross negligence and/or reckless disregard of the consequences.”

Glendinning Products, a South Carolina-based controls maker, is more specific: “negligent and improper modifications” to controls equipment aboard Pamina “contravened manufacturer recommendations” and “rendered [Pamina] unseaworthy,” according to filings.

Untangling this game of three-dimensional legal hot potato will require extensive, expensive investigations. 

Sailors and other witnesses will be deposed. Damaged vessels will be inspected by forensic experts at rates of $500 and more. Thick reports will be written and exchanged among counsel. 

“It’s going to be a slog,” says Wayne Mitchell, a Seattle-area attorney representing Hovhannisyan and the LLC that owns her boat. 

In many multiparty negligence cases, if forensics makes it reasonably clear which parties are at fault — and which way a court would likely rule — insurers may push to settle rather than wage a costly, low-odds court battle.

“Insurance companies are very sophisticated entities,” says Moure. Using massive databases of similar litigation, insurers can calculate what any given case is worth and “are good at offering just enough money to make the plaintiff not want to run the risk of trial,” he says.

But Pamina has a few extra complications. 

The dispute falls under U.S. maritime law, which has unique things to say about who pays what in accidents. 

Under the Limitation of Liability Act of 1851, if the vessel owner can prove they didn’t know and shouldn’t have known about a hazard, their liability is capped at their vessel’s post-accident value, no matter how much damage was done.

If the Pickerings can show they weren’t aware of any problems with their yacht, the most their insurer pays is $550,000, or Pamina’s assessed value after subtracting its own damage of $150,000. 

Runaway yachts weren’t the problem the liability limit was meant to solve. Nineteenth century lawmakers were trying to protect America’s nascent shipping industry from potentially ruinous litigation at a time when accidents were common.

But liability limitation has become a standard defense even in cases with very little connection to shipping, including those involving houseboats, Jet Skis and cruise ships. (Titanic’s owners, infamously, used the law to avoid all but a tiny fraction of the claims against them.)

And while liability limitation strategies frequently fail, they can add still more layers of litigation to already complex cases.

All that counterclaiming and crossclaiming might be avoided by settling, but the large number of litigants and of lawyers — 15 at last count — still points to a protracted process, legal experts say.

“Even if we settle it, it’s going to take months,” says Mitchell. “And if we try it, it’s going to be over a year.”

Fifteen lawyers working a multiyacht pileup in the Locks sounds like the punchline to a joke about Ballard. Or at the very least, a metaphor for what the Seattle area is becoming in the third decade of the 21st century.

For now, though, there seems to no single, agreed-upon moral to the story — even within the local yachting community, where news of the pileup quickly made the rounds and where the incident remains a topic of conversation.

Some might see the crash as a cautionary tale about boating safety in the Puget Sound’s challenging waterways, not least the Ballard Locks, which even experienced sailors can find daunting.

Since 2020, Locks officials have recorded three collisions, even though pleasure craft traffic through the Locks is half of what it was in 2000, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the Locks. 

“I think sometimes people forget what a problematic environment [the Locks] can be if you’re not really on your toes,” says Gina Purdy, a longtime member of the Seattle Yacht Club.

Others note the trend toward larger vessels.

Between 2000 and 2020, the number of vessels 50 feet and longer in Washington state climbed by nearly 75%, according to an analysis of state boat registrations by Anacortes-based BST Associates, which consults on waterfront projects.  

“When I started, it was older people who had bigger, nicer boats, because they worked up ‘through the ranks,’” says Neal Booth, 63, president of the Boat Insurance Agency at Elliott Bay Marina and veteran of Seattle’s boating scene. 

Today, Booth says, “someone decides they want a 50-foot boat, they go buy a 50-foot boat.”

Some say those bigger boats reflect the area’s rising wealth, not least in booming sectors such as tech.

Others says it’s also due to advances in control technologies. Features like bow and stern thrusters, remote docking, joystick steering and GPS-powered “digital anchors” have made it easier for less-experienced sailors to handle larger vessels, says Byron Shirley, a broker at Denison Yachting in Seattle.

While many insurers still require boats of around 75 feet or more to be professionally captained, for anything less than that, there are far “fewer barriers to entry.”

He points to a hot new model: a 62-footer with a $2.4 million price and all the latest technology. “One or two people can run that boat,” Shirley says, but adds that he worries the new technologies might be giving some boaters “a false sense of confidence.”

 * * * *

As for allided boaters themselves, many seem to have migrated to the role of observers, as insurers and attorneys dig into the case. 

Several appear to have their boats repaired and back on the water. 

The Pamina has recently been through the Locks and has berthed at Fishermen’s Terminal, according to an online vessel tracking service, but its current location isn’t available.

Whatever meaning they’ve attached to the accident isn’t clear, since most still won’t publicly comment on the crash or the legal case. Formo, after an initial interview, hasn’t responded to additional queries.

Still, in his initial comments, Formo expressed a mix of feelings that might resonate with his fellow Locks occupants.

Yes, the accident was briefly terrifying and also costly: Though his boat is fixed, his insurance premiums have doubled “even though none of this was our fault,” he said.

Yet Formo, a financial adviser, was also quick to concede how much worse things could have been in the Locks last May.

Nobody was seriously hurt. And despite the extensive damage, everyone involved remained relatively polite and even understanding toward the Pickerings, who in turn “handled the situation with class.”

Formo also acknowledged how little he and his fellow yachters had to complain about in the first place, given what else was going on in the world.

“This was in the middle of the pandemic,” Formo said of the accident. “People were dying all over the place. We got a few scratches on our boat.”

The opinions expressed in reader comments are those of the author only and do not reflect the opinions of The Seattle Times.

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British man killed and six injured in luxury yacht crash in Italy

Reports suggest vessel may have swerved to avoid collision with another boat, article bookmarked.

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A British man has died after a luxury yacht crashed into rocks near a seaside resort in Italy.

The 63-year-old man, from England, was unconscious but still alive when members of the coast guard reached him near Porto Cervo, on the island of Sardinia , on Sunday evening.

However, the man suffered fatal injuries and died immediately after the rescue, according to local media.

Six other people on board the boat were injured but managed to disembark in Porto Cervo where they were seen by emergency doctors.

Two were assessed as being in a serious condition and taken to hospital.

The man who died is thought to have been the owner of the 70-foot yacht, according to state broadcaster Rai.

The vessel is understood to have hit rocks off the coastline as the group was sailing in front of the Li Nibani Islands at about 8.40pm on Sunday.

It is believed the incident may have happened as the yacht’s captain attempted to manoeuvre to avoid colliding with another boat.

The vessel, which was half submerged under water following the crash, is said to have already been recovered and towed to the port of Porto Cervo.

Porto Cervo is located on the Costa Smeralda – a stretch of coastline in the northeast of Sardinia famous for its beaches and luxury resorts.

It is a popular location for the rich and famous, who often frequent its yacht-dotted marina.

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Inside Below Deck Sailing Yacht ’s Crash, and the Dramatic Aftermath

By Julie Miller

Below Deck viewers have survived kitchen fires, nightmare charter guests , dramatic dismissals, drug scandals , and soured romantic relationships. But Monday’s episode of Below Deck Sailing Yacht, “Total Ship Show,” is unprecedented in franchise history, in terms of its sheer disaster quotient. Within the first five minutes of the episode, the Parsifal yacht crashes into a stone dock in high winds, destroying the end of the vessel and totaling Captain Glenn Shephard ’s already-dented ego. (Last week, Parsifal suffered a less serious collision. We hope the sailing yacht is not cursed.) The rest of the episode unravels like a high-paced thriller set aboard an out-of-control luxury yacht.

The villains: the shrill, gluten-free charter guests, who are too self-involved to notice the Parsifal ’s jacked transom door. The dramatic B-plot: the chef screwing up a five-course meal by serving steak after dessert. As if this were not enough action for a single episode, there is also an STD scare that forces an otherwise respectable woman to reckon with an indiscretion.

“It was almost like an embarrassment of riches,” said Below Deck executive producer Courtland Cox, of the chart-topping chaos in Croatia. “It’s amazing that this was all happening, but it’s also difficult to tell all of these stories in an interesting way within a limited amount of time per episode.” Some viewers complained that the season was starting off too smoothly, but Cox trusted the process and knew that such interesting cast members would yield climactic story lines. “With any great narrative structure, you want to have peaks and valleys that eventually crescendo into something interesting…. The yacht crashing, guests being crazy, and Jean-Luc [Cerza Lanaux] being worried about getting an STD, all that stuff is the seasoning.”

Ahead, Cox and Parsifal chief stew Daisy Kelliher take us behind the scenes of Monday’s bombshell episode to answer all of our burning questions—about everything from the crash to the onboard romances, including Dani’s pregnancy announcement.

Executive producer Cox was tucked away in a tiny control room on the Parsifal during both accidents, where he was able to watch what was happening from three different camera vantage points, and hear what was happening from the walkie-talkie dialogue on deck. Cox said that he knew that the Parsifal was going to hit the dock about five seconds before it happened—when first mate Gary King began calling out the shrinking measurements between the yacht and the dock, but the boat, because of the intense wind and swell, kept hurtling toward the dock at full speed. Because of a mechanical error that short-circuited the thrusters, Captain Glenn was not able to propel the vessel in the reverse direction.

As the ship sped toward the dock, the Below Deck producer juggled a contradictory range of concerns: the fear of a captive passenger aboard an out-of-control vessel; worry for his fellow shipmates; heartbreak for Captain Glenn, who was about to bite it in front of multiple cameras; and, conversely, the shark-like instincts of a reality-TV producer keen to capture the chaotic melee in all of its gruesome glory.

“The human part of me, my heart aches for Glenn,” Cox told Vanity Fair. Still, he continued, “My job is to capture what’s actually happening—so we told our camera operators, ‘Stay on Glenn.’ We don’t push right up in his face or get in his way, but the story in the moment was that Glenn hit the dock. How was he going to rectify the situation?”

In addition to seeing the crash, viewers also witness Captain Glenn’s spirit breaking close up—as the sweet Parsifal pilot realizes, in devastatingly real time, that he has not only incurred thousands of dollars in yacht damages, but has done so with a camera trained on him.

“I probably watched this episode 15 times in various incarnations, and every time I see Glenn’s face in the immediate aftermath of hitting that dock, I still get very emotional,” said Cox. “It’s a catastrophic moment for any yacht captain when you do damage to a boat. It’s the worst possible thing. And I also know that that’s compounded by a factor of a million because there are TV cameras on you.”

Cox has produced 16 seasons’ worth of Below Deck, and called the crash “the second-most intense moment ever on the series.” (The first-most intense was a near-death accident in 2018 during which deckhand Ashton Pienaar was pulled overboard after his ankle was caught in ropes.) “As a producer, it’s amazingly compelling. But as a person onboard, it’s terrifying…. But Glenn is a consummate professional. He didn’t try to deflect or make excuses or try to tap dance his way out of it. He went quickly into crisis mode, damage mode.”

Parsifal chief stew Daisy Kelliher said that watching the crash in the episode was worse than living it, “because I was downstairs when it happened. I have never seen a boat that crashed the dock or been in a boat that crashed the dock.”

By Savannah Walsh

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Speaking about Glenn, Kelliher said, “He was pretty upset at the time, but you quickly calm down. It was an accident, and the main thing is nobody got hurt. It’s like banging your car. You get the insurance sorted. You learn from it. And you move on.”

How quickly did the episode’s events happen in real life?

The unfolded over the course of about 72 hours, according to Cox. “The boat hits the dock, it looks terrible, and Glenn’s like, ‘Well, the guests are getting here in four hours.’… The crew did a great job at kind of compartmentalizing, and putting the dock behind us as these charter guests come on. And the story becomes about J.L.’ s anxiety about the STD, and [chef] Natasha’s anxiety about these guests having crazy demands that are emotionally taxing on the heels of a traumatic event…. It’s exhausting for them.”

What did producers make of another unprecedented plot twist: J.L.’s on-camera concerns about a potential sexually transmitted disease?

This twist surprised even Cox. “I’m a fossil who grew up in the ’70s and ’80s,” said Cox. “What was going through my head was, ‘There’s a very easy way he could have prevented this—by using some kind of protection. If you roll the dice, you kinda gotta accept what happens to you. I’m not a heartless monster TV producer. I don’t want anyone to ever suffer or go through something they have an existential crisis over. In that moment, you’re hoping that it’s at least one of the lesser STDs that is easily treated.”

When did producers discover that Dani was pregnant? (The cast member revealed her pregnancy on Instagram last month.)

“Dani brought it to our attention when we were pretty far into the postproduction process,” said Cox. “Even once Dani found out, I think she kind of wanted to sit with [the news] herself. Then she let us know and said, ‘Hey, just so you know, I’m pregnant.’ We said, ‘Okay, great.’ I left that up to her and how much information she wanted to give us. My first reaction was, ‘That’s fantastic. Congratulations.’ Because she made it clear throughout the season that she wanted a family. The rest of that is for Dani to figure out.”

“I really don’t ask Dani much about it,” added Kelliher in a separate phone call. “I’m very aware that that she probably feels like she’s explaining herself to a lot of people. So I try and respect her privacy. We’ve spoken a little about it, but I figure the less I know the better.”

Do Daisy and Natasha eventually get to a place of mutual understanding and respect?

“I didn’t mind her,” said Kelliher. “On the show it looks like we hated each other. We were very civil with each other, and would laugh and sit with each other. It wasn’t constant arguing—that only came when it was time to serve meals…. At that stage, I had kind of given up, because I had tried everything. She didn’t want my help. She didn’t want to communicate with me…. I’m asking you if you’re serving five courses, you’re telling me no. I could stand here and keep arguing, but I wasn’t going to win in this.… We have a good relationship now. I have respect for her. But that [tension] never changes.”

What is Daisy’s read on the love triangle tensions between Gary, Sydney, and Alli?

“I wish I had been there for some of the conversations [between the three of them], because I don’t think they would have escalated as much,” said Kelliher. “I do think Sydney was pretty intense. I knew she was upset and understood why she was upset. If you’re a girl, it’s embarrassing if somebody chooses someone over you…. But some of the things she said were quite mean to Ali, and I didn’t really like that. If I had been there, that wouldn’t have happened because I wouldn’t have allowed it.”

“I’ve definitely seen love triangles. I’ve been involved in love triangles. This was intense because it escalated so quickly. I didn’t really get it. I guess maybe we’re all intense people—maybe that’s why you do a TV show about yachting. But I did find the whole thing a bit weird from all sides. I was like, ‘We’ve known each other [for] like three weeks…and don’t even know each others’ last names.’ Settle down.”

Below Deck Sailing Yacht airs on Bravo at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

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Superyacht crash video shows 77m Go colliding with Caribbean dock

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Footage has emerged of a 235ft superyacht crashing into a luxury Caribbean yacht club’s pier, causing visible damage to both the yacht and the dock.

Onlookers were shocked last week (February 24) when a 235ft (77m) superyacht collided with the dock of Sint Maarten Yacht Club in the Caribbean.

Video footage of the incident shows the extent of the damage – while the pier took the brunt of it, the superyacht’s steel hull didn’t come off unscathed.

Computer malfunction was to blame for the sickening superyacht crash, according to local publication The Daily Herald , which adds that no-one was injured as a result.

Article continues below…

Boat insurance Q&A: Everything you need to know about why premiums are rising

Video: burning superyacht filmed in us virgin islands.

Footage has emerged of a burning superyacht that caught fire on Tuesday in the US Virgin Islands

The incident took place at around 1015 local time and the newspaper added that an insurer had already been to assess the extent of the damage by the end of the day.

If you think you’re having a bad day at work, spare a thought for the captain and crew who had to explain this situation to their yacht’s owner.

Launched by Turkish yard Turquoise Yachts in 2018, Go features a helipad, gym, jacuzzi, beach club, sauna and hospital as well as a master suite and eight guest cabins styled by London-based studio H2 Yacht Design.

She is run by a crew of up to 18 and her twin 2,575hp Caterpillar 3516C engines give her an estimated top speed of 17 knots.

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• Mar 4, 2021

Captain Makes Clutch Decision to Save Superyacht 'GO' in St. Maarten's Crash

By: Scott Way

Last week the brilliantly turquoise superyacht GO made headlines for crashing into St. Maarten's Yacht Club. Not once, but twice.

Naturally, internet 'experts' were quick to pounce. With a predictable lack of knowledge, many immediately labeled the crash the result of driver error. Surely no captain could crash one of the world's nicest boats into one of yachting's most famous ports. What the videos lack, like most viral phenomena, is context. The captain of GO was recently interviewed by The Daily Herald to discuss the circumstances surrounding the incident. Predictably, there was far more at play than operator error. If you haven't seen the videos, here's a few different angles of the mishap:

As for the vessel in question, the boldly turquoise GO is a 77m (252 ft) luxury motor yacht designed by H2 and built by the aptly named Turquoise Yachts . It is owned by Capri Sun mogul Hans-Peter Wild . Yes, that Capri Sun, the lovable juice in a bag with the world's most challenging straw. It is entirely computer-driven and packed with deluxe appointments including a pool, jacuzzi, elevator, gym, helipad, and steam room. She runs with a crew of 19 and has 7 cabins for up to 12 guests. It was built in Turkey and launched in 2018 with a pricetag of roughly $100 million USD.

As for the events that transpired, captain Simon Johnson was preparing to depart the lagoon via the rotating land bridge (which you can see in the upper frame of the second video). While roughly 50 metres from the bridge and holding position pending the bridge opening, an electronic error began pushing the yacht forward without steering input. The passage itself is precarious enough as GO carries a 13.5 meter (44 ft) beam and has only 50 cm (1.6 ft) of clearance on either side.

Johnson told The Herald , “With not much water between us and the bridge, I always set to align my stern and get parallel well in time for the bridge opening. We left the dock an hour before and went through all the checks. There was nothing different from the other times we’ve done this exit. I was in good shape."

“Then, when we were about 50 metres away and holding position, the yacht started moving mysteriously forward. There was nothing I seemed to be able to do; all the controls on the bridge were showing normal. I called the engine room and everything was normal down there. I found I had extremely limited control, almost limited to only the bow thruster, but with now only 50 metres between us and the bridge I had to make a decision fast."

The ability to prioritize outcomes while under duress is a valuable trait, and the sign of a good captain, and Johnson was able to calculate a remarkable list of outcomes before choosing a course of action.

“I certainly did not want to put the anchor down. That would have been disastrous. By the time the anchor hit the bottom we would have been 30 metres further in. Then we would have pinned the bow upwind, and slewed the stern towards the rocks and the road bridge.

“We have 160,000 litres of fuel on board. If I had done that, I would not only have disabled the bridge, but potentially breached the hull on the rocks beneath and could have caused an oil spill. My preferred option was to point the bow towards the yacht club dock, and beach her gently there. I had a crew member up front shouting a warning to make sure everyone was out of the way.”

After some initial investigation, it was determined Johnson had 13 roughly seconds to choose a course of action. Having made the passage at St. Maarten's 20 times previously, his knowledge of the boat and the lagoon was undoubtedly valuable.

“The fact that there were no warning alarms, no lights on board to indicate something was wrong was really scary. I know this yacht so well, yet I had 13 seconds to make a decision before hitting the bridge. The decision I made was one I would make again if faced with the same circumstances.”

While internet critics were quick to heap blame upon him, Johnson was justifiable in his criticism of the electronics responsible, calling them “ridiculously over the top” and without manual overrides. On GO in particular, there are 14 computers on the bridge with two more below decks. Insurers will now have the tall task of determining the root of the electronic fault, as well as assessing the extent of the damage to GO and the Yacht Club dock before pursuing repairs.

As for Johnson, “I’m proud that we walked away from a crash landing, and most importantly, there was no injury and the island’s arterial road bridge was not compromised,” he said.

The yacht's owner Hans-Peter Wild was also supportive, releasing a public statement in which he declared he is “extremely supportive of the captain’s decisions and performance. Personnel, economic, environmental disaster was averted for the island. I have full faith and confidence in the captain and am very grateful.”

You can see more photos of the impressive GO below:

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New video shows moment tour boats crashed near PortMiami, injuring 13 people

The video shows the boat moving through the water when a second boat comes from the side and crashes into it, by lorena inclán and nbc6 • published february 27, 2024 • updated on february 27, 2024 at 8:37 pm.

New video captured the moments two charter boats crashed near PortMiami earlier this month, in a collision that left 13 people injured.

The video was released late Monday by a personal injury law firm in Miami that told NBC6 they are planning a lawsuit against both companies involved.

The firm, Mausner Graham Injury Law , is representing several of the victims in the crash which sent at least two people to the hospital. Their goal is to receive compensation for some of the passengers involved.

A spokesperson for the firm also told NBC6 that the case highlights the need for wearing life jackets and using engine cut-off switches.

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The firm's clients were visiting Miami from New York when they decided to enjoy a day on the water so they hopped on a speedboat at Bayside.

The video is from a person who was on one of two tour boats on the water around Fisherman’s Channel back on February 11th.

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The video shows the boat moving through the water when a second boat comes from the side and crashes into it.

Officials with the U.S. Coast guard told NBC6 the collision involved the "Obelix” and the "Thriller,” which are both charter boats.

A USCG spokesperson said the “Obelix” was operating illegally.

The owner of that charter previously told NBC6 that no one on his boat was injured, but he didn’t want to comment further.

The person who took the video was on the "Thriller." The attorneys said their clients suffered fractured bones, one lost consciousness, and another suffered a traumatic brain injury.

"Both boats in this instance just were not safe, they failed to maintain a lookout, they failed to avoid a collision, they sped and you can see on this video that our client was lucky enough to take there was an extremely gruesome collision that had safety been followed it was utterly preventable," attorney Thomas Graham said.

The cause of the crash is still being investigated by the U.S. Coast Guard and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

This article tagged under:

By SuperyachtNews 12 Aug 2019

Captain of 'Moatize' explains cause of Cairns marina crash

The 46m motoryacht crashed into a wharf in cairns after suffering from a technical fault….

Footage has emerged of the moment the 46m motoryacht Moatize crashed into a wharf in Cairns Marlin Marina after suffering from a technical fault. The captain and crew were able to respond to the situation in an appropriate manner and fortunately no one was hurt.

The incident occurred when the yacht was docking at the Cairns marina at around 6pm on Saturday night. The vessel only suffered cosmetic damage but collided with the pier very close to waterfront diners and, as a result, part of the marina and a nearby restaurant have closed while the site is restored.

Following the incident, local press interviewed  Moatize ’s captain about the cause of the crash and his response. “We came [into the marina] and did a tight turn… and our starboard gear was stuck ahead when I selected the go astern,” he told local news outlet The Daily Telegraph .

“We used the bow thruster to come over into a clear vision, went astern to exit the marina, but it was still going ahead at all times. We took control in the wheelhouse to try and see if it was a technical fault on the controls, but it was still going ahead again. So, we did what we’re trained to in collisions: we shut down all engines, dropped an anchor and thank God we selected a nice spot where there were no personnel.”

Regarding the damage caused to the boat and the affected infrastructure, he added; “I am not even worried about the money and neither is the owner. We are just making sure that everyone here is still functioning, that no one is put out, and there is no injury – that’s our only concern.”

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Maui Yacht Owner: ‘I Didn’t Know What I Was Getting Into’

Jim Jones says he wants to make things right, but former employees and Maui residents say he shouldn't have a boat.

Jim Jones says he wants to make things right, but former employees and Maui residents say he shouldn’t have a boat.

The owner of a luxury yacht that ran aground last month in Honolua Bay is trying to salvage his reputation as efforts continue this week to remove his 94-foot Sunseeker from a delicate reef off Maui.

“We are taking full responsibility for this,” Noelani Yacht Charters owner Jim Jones said Thursday. “We’re not running.”

That assurance may not be enough to persuade Maui politicians, community advocates and local mariners who say he shouldn’t stay in business at all. Several of his former workers have said he repeatedly ignored state boating regulations and skirted recommended safety practices, to the point where multiple people who worked with Jones said they quit because of risky behavior.

“He shouldn’t be allowed to have a boat,” a former worker said, speaking on the condition of anonymity .

Jones said he started out with a dream to buy a boat. A woodworker by trade, he began looking for one a few years ago around Honolulu and first set his eyes on a 65-footer — a “big monster boat.”

But his friend, a boat captain, cautioned him against getting one so big for his first vessel. Plus, harbors to store boats of that size are scarce in Hawaii. Where would he put it?

So Jones kept looking until 2020, when he settled on what he thought was the perfect opportunity: a 74-foot yacht that came with its own slip in Kewalo Basin Harbor. It had been used for charters in the past, and by renting it out in the future, Jones hoped it would pay for itself. The owner agreed to let him pay it off over time, sealing the deal.

In the height of the pandemic, Jones began pouring his resources into marketing and establishing a “luxury yacht image,” equipped with private chefs, bartenders and local musicians. 

“I’ll be honest, I didn’t know what I was getting into. I just figured it was something to pay the bills,” Jones said. “And then once this thing took off, we’re going, ‘Holy shit.’”

Now Jones is trying to assure government officials and the community that he will cover the cost of a nearly $500,000 salvage job .

On Feb. 20, Jones said he was on a family outing, spending the weekend in Honolua Bay, when his mooring line failed while attached to a mooring that’s only allowed to be used for two hours at a time.

The Nakoa, a 94-foot yacht that Jones said he brought to Hawaii in December, ended up drifting onto the reef. By the next day, the hull had been punctured, and diesel fuel spilled into the water leading into one of Maui’s most beloved marine sanctuaries . 

In the days that followed, the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources announced that it was putting up $460,000 to try to haul the 120-ton yacht away. But after unsuccessful attempts and delays because of stormy weather, the yacht remained on Thursday evening.

DLNR officials said earlier this week that the salvage ship Kahi, operated by Visionary Marine, will return to Maui on Friday or Saturday. 

“We’ve been talking to the DLNR to let them know we’re not leaving them with the bill,” Jones said.

Jones said he was working with his insurance company to cover the cost. Asked to provide a copy of his coverage, he declined, citing the current investigation into the incident. He said he didn’t know the specifics of his insurance policy or how much it covered. 

“I feel his actions were extremely irresponsible,” said Maui County Council member Tamara Paltin, who has long fought to protect Honolua Bay. “I don’t think he fully understands how special a place Honolua is to so many of us and just how much aggravation he has caused our community.” 

As Jones works with attorneys, insurance agents and the state, he said he’s also determined to make amends with the Maui community and work to restore his company’s reputation. Since the incident in Honolua, he said he’s continued to run charters on his Oahu-based yacht, the Noelani, which will help him pay the debts he owes. 

But the Noelani has its own history of problems. The boat caught fire in Kewalo Basin Harbor in October, according to the Honolulu Fire Department.

Asked about the incident, Jones said the fire broke out in a guest suite, just as he was flying out of state to purchase the Nakoa. He blamed the fire on incandescent light bulbs that are common in older boats. Fortunately, he said, the Honolulu Fire Department responded and contained the fire from spreading out of the room. 

“When I first got a boat, my friends were telling me, ‘No, don’t get a boat; it’s nonstop problems,’” Jones said. “There’s constantly stuff going on.”

But mariners interviewed by Civil Beat say fires aren’t one of the nonstop problems boat owners regularly face.

“I can’t think of a reported fire incident in Maalaea Harbor in the 40 years I’ve been here,” said Michael Wildberger, a captain on Maui who’s run thousands of snorkel tours.

Catering To The Jet Set

After buying his first yacht in 2020, Jones said he quickly realized that catering to the ultra-wealthy in search of day trips on megayachts was an untapped market in Hawaii. High-end hotels were looking for luxury activities to send their clients on, Jones said.

In his marketing strategy, he made it clear: Noelani Yacht Charters wasn’t a basic fishing or snorkeling charter. His website advertises trips on Maui starting at $9,800 . 

“We cater to these guys that are flying in on their private jets,” Jones said. 

For almost two years, Jones grew his business with the Noelani, until he found an investor willing to help him acquire the Nakoa, the vessel that ran aground last month.

At first, Jones said he thought the investor would pay the transportation costs to have the Nakoa sent to Hawaii from overseas. When the investor suddenly said he wouldn’t cover that cost, Jones said he put up the money for the transport, which meant he missed out on paying almost $290,000 for the final payment he owed for the Noelani.

He was later sued for not making that payment, as well as failing to pay back $100,000 he borrowed from another person to pay for the Noelani.

Jones downplayed the lawsuits, calling them mutual agreements and “just records of the payment plans that we’ve created.”

With the Nakoa, Jones dreamed of expanding his business to allow multinight charters to Maui, where he planned to whisk clients away to snorkel trips around Molokini or head over to Hulopoe Bay on Lanai. He said he discovered Honolua Bay during trips on the Noelani, describing it as a place he couldn’t believe he could visit with a yacht of that size. 

Jones said he took his family to Honolua for a holiday weekend last month, and tied up at the mooring that’s only supposed to be used for two hours at a time. Asked if he was aware of the rule, Jones said was never informed of it by the Coast Guard or DLNR but had been “getting flak from day one” from Maui tour companies in the bay. 

“When you have the same company coming in, they’re switching boats every two hours,” he said. “What’s the difference of that versus us just staying there?”

It’s not the only law that community members have complained about Noelani Yacht Charters allegedly violating.

A month before the Nakoa ran aground, Tina Wildberger, South Maui’s former state lawmaker, wrote to DLNR about a dinghy shuttling passengers between the yacht and Kihei Boat Ramp, which she said isn’t allowed without a permit.

“There’s some serious high end pirate action happening here with these yachts,” Wildberger said in her January email to DLNR. “Does this vessel have a special permit to pick up passengers at Kihei Boat Ramp today?”

The next day, Wildberger got her answer: The boat didn’t have a special permit. 

Jones said he often stopped at Kihei Boat Ramp to make crew runs, including going to Ace Hardware. He denied picking up passengers though. He said that he doesn’t have a commercial permit for the Nakoa, but that he operates his business in a way that allows him to get around that. 

“That’s a whole other gray area,” Jones said.

His first boat, the Noelani, has a commercial permit. But Jones said he ran the Nakoa with a workaround called “bareboat charters.” That means that he rents the boat out to people without providing any crew. Instead, he can suggest when they rent the boat that the clients hire the crew that he’s vetted ahead of time. It’s a business model that’s popular among yacht rental businesses.

For now, Jones said he’ll keep running tours on the Noelani out of Oahu while charting his next steps. He’s hoping to find a replacement for the Nakoa and continue his expansion to Maui — if residents will have him.

“I’m hoping that we can meet everybody personally, to apologize to them face to face — let them know that and show them that I am local,” Jones said. “I think once we talk, they’ll realize I’m just like them.”

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by grants from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation and the Fred Baldwin Memorial Foundation.

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Helena man dies in crash on Canyon Ferry Road

by NBC Montana Staff

MISSOULA, Mont. — A 58-year-old Helena man has died after a crash near the intersection of Canyon Ferry Road and Yacht Basin Road on Saturday night.

According to a crash report from Montana Highway patrol the Toyota Tacoma the man was driving on Canyon Ferry Road grazed a guardrail, which caused the driver to lose control.

The Tacoma went off the side of the eastern side of the road and came to rest on the embankment. The driver was pronounced dead at the scene.

Alcohol and speed are suspected factors. The report notes the driver was not wearing a seat belt.

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How Jordan Belfort's 37m superyacht Nadine sank off the coast of Sardinia

Related articles.

Coco Chanel was famously outspoken on many things, but yachting, in particular, attracted her ire. “As soon as you set foot on a yacht you belong to some man, not to yourself, and you die of boredom,” she was once quoted as saying.

Her solution was to buy her own yacht. A 37m with a steel hull, built by the Dutch yard Witsen & Vis of Alkmaar. The yacht passed through many hands, finally ending up belonging to the Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort, on whose watch she foundered and sank in 1996.

The yacht was originally built for a Frenchman under the name Mathilde , but he backed out and she caught Chanel’s eye instead. With a narrow beam, a high bow and the long, low superstructure typical of Dutch yachts of her era, she was certainly a beautiful boat. But she was also well equipped, with five staterooms in dark teak panelling, magnificent dining facilities, room for big tenders and, later, a helipad. A frequent sight along the Florida coast, she caught the eye of a young skipper called Mark Elliott.

“In those days, she was the biggest yacht on the East Coast,” he remembers. “Nobody had ever seen anything like it. I needed a wrench once and went up to the boat - Captain Norm Dahl was really friendly.” He didn’t know it then, but Elliott was destined to become the skipper of the boat himself and was at the helm when the storm of the century took her to the bottom off Sardinia.

Coco Chanel died in 1971 and sometime thereafter the yacht was renamed Jan Pamela under the new ownership of Melvin Lane Powers. He was a flamboyant Houston real estate developer, fond of crocodile skin cowboy boots and acquitted of murder in a trial that gripped the nation.

Powers sent Jan Pamela to Merrill Stevens yard in Miami, where a mammoth seven-metre section was added amidships. “We made templates for the boat where we were going to cut her in half, then she went out for another charter season,” remembers Whit Kirtland, son of the yard owner. “When the boat came back in, we cut it just forward of the engine room, rolled the two sections apart and welded it in.”

He remembers how the sun’s heat made the bare and painted metal expand at different rates. “You had to weld during certain time periods – early in the morning or late at night,” says Kirtland.

The result of the extension was a huge new seven-metre full-beam master stateroom, an extra salon and one further cabin – pushing the charter capacity to seven staterooms. During this refit, the boat’s colour was also changed from white to taupe. “No one had really done it before and it was gorgeous,” says Elliott. By 1983, Powers was bankrupt and the yacht was sold on again. She next shows up named Edgewater .

Elliott’s chance came in 1989. He was working for the established yacht owner Bernie Little, who ran a hugely profitable distribution business for Bud brewer Anheuser-Busch. “Bernie Little had always wanted to own the boat,” Elliott says. “He loved it. He bought it sight unseen – and I started a huge restoration programme, including another extension to put three metres in the cockpit.”

It was a massive task, undertaken at Miami Ship. “We pulled out all the windows, re-chromed everything, repainted – brought it back to life,” says Elliott. They also cut out old twin diesels from GM and replaced them with bigger CAT engines, doubling her horsepower to 800. “Repowered, she could cruise at up to 20 knots. She was long and skinny, like a destroyer.”

A smart hydraulic feature was also brought to life for the first time. Under two of the sofas in the main stateroom were hidden 3.6m x 1.2m glass panels giving a view of the sea under the boat. At the push of a button, the sofas lifted up and mirrors above allowed you to gaze at the seabed – from the actual bed.

Now called Big Eagle , like all of Little’s boats, she was a charter hit and her top client was a certain New York financier named Jordan Belfort. He fell in love with her and begged Little to sell to him. But he needed to secure financing, and in 1995, Little agreed to hold a note on the boat for a year if Mark Elliott stayed on as skipper.

With the boat rechristened Nadine after his wife, Belfort set about another round of refit work, restyling the interior with vintage deco and lots of mirrors, extending the upper deck this time, and fitting a crane capable of raising and stowing the Turbine Seawind seaplane.

Nadine also carried a helicopter, a 10m Intrepid tender, two 6m dinghies on the bow, four motorbikes, six jetskis, state-of-the-art dive gear. “You pretty much needed an air traffic controller when all these things were in the water,” says Elliott.

Belfort’s partying was legendary and Elliott clearly saw eye-watering things on board, but as far as he was concerned, he was there to safeguard the boat. “When Jordan Belfort became the owner, he could do whatever he wanted. I was there to protect the note,” says Elliott. “He is a brilliant mind and a lovely person. It was just when he was in his party mode, he was out of control.”

Nadine and her huge cohort of toys and vehicles plied all the usual yachting haunts on both sides of the Atlantic. But Belfort’s love story was to be short-lived. Disaster struck with the boss and guests on board during an 85-mile crossing between Civitavecchia in Italy and Calle de Volpe on Sardinia.

What was forecast to be a 20-knot blow and moderate seas degenerated into a violent 70-knot storm with crests towering above 10.6m, according to Elliott. Wave after wave pounded the superstructure, stoving in hatches and windows so that water poured below and made the boat sluggish. By a miracle the engine room remained dry and they could maintain steerage way, motoring slowly through the black of the night as rescue attempt after rescue attempt was called off.

Nadine eventually sank at dawn in over 1000m of water just 20 miles from the coast of Sardinia. Everyone had been taken off by helicopter, and there was no loss of life. Captain Mark Elliott was roundly congratulated for his handling of the incident. “The insurance paid immediately because it was the storm of the century,” he says. “I took the whole crew but one with me to [Little’s next boat] Star Ship . That was my way to come back.”

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A man died in a one-vehicle crash in Lewis & Clark County

GREAT FALLS — A man died in a one-vehicle crash in Lewis & Clark County on Saturday, May 4, 2024.

It happened at about 4:35 p.m. near the intersection of Canyon Ferry Road and Yacht Basin Road.

According to the Montana Highway Patrol, a 58-year old man from Helena was westbound in a Toyota Tacoma on Canyon Ferry Road.

The vehicle grazed the guardrail, causing the driver to lose control.

The vehicle went off the eastbound side of the road; the driver died at the scene.

Lewis & Clark County Sheriff/Coroner Leo Dutton identified the man as Samuel George of Helena, 58 years old.

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According to the MHP, alcohol and speed may have been factors in the crash, and the man was not wearing a seatbelt.

There were no other occupants of the vehicle.

We will update you if we get more information.

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Fire department: Oak Island home a total loss after fire caused by lightning strike

OAK ISLAND, N.C. (WECT) - The Oak Island Fire Department responded to a house fire caused by a lightning strike Wednesday night along with two other lightning strikes that caused minor damage.

Per the town, crews were dispatched to a strike at a home on NE 4th Street at 9:12 p.m. that caused minor damage but no fire.

Then two minutes later at 9:14 p.m., crews were dispatched to another lightning strike at 302 W Yacht Drive. Crews arrived within three minutes to find the home about 75 percent involved in fire, per the town. It was contained within 45 minutes with an aggressive response and two ladder units, but the home was still a total loss.

Nobody was inside the home at the time, and none of the surrounding structures were significantly damaged, the town says.

Then while crews were responding at Yacht Drive, there was a third call about a lightning strike, but this one did not result in a fire. The three calls were within a seven-block radius of each other.

“The Town of Oak Island and the Fire Department thank the mutual aid responders for their assistance during this event, which included the Oak Island Police Department, Bolivia Fire Department, Brunswick County EMS, Southport Fire Department, St. James Fire Department, Sunny Point Fire & Rescue, Sunset Harbor Zion Hill Volunteer fire Department, Winnabow Volunteer Fire Department, with standby assistance provided by Leland Fire Department and Supply Volunteer Fire Department. The Town of Oak Island and the Fire Department sincerely appreciate the assistance of all responding agencies,” a town announcement states.

Copyright 2024 WECT. All rights reserved.

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Man (20s) dies following scrambler bike crash in west Dublin

Gardaí appeal for witnesses of incident that occurred in blanchardstown on thursday afternoon.

The scrambler bike driver was pronounced dead at the scene. Photograph: iStock

A man in his 20s has died following a crash involving a scrambler bike in Dublin on Thursday afternoon.

The man who was driving the scrambler bike was travelling on the Phibblestown Road in Castaheaney, Blanchardstown, when he crashed shortly after 2pm.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

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Gardaí are appealing for any witnesses of the incident to come forward.

“Any road users who may have camera footage (including dashcam) and were travelling in the Phibblestown Road area of Dublin 15 between 1.45pm and 2.15pm are asked to make this footage available to gardaí,” a spokesman said.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact Blanchardstown Garda station on 01 6667000, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda Station.

Some 72 people have lost their lives on Irish roads so far this year, an increase of 16 when compared with the same period in 2023.

Drivers accounted for 26 of those, followed by passengers (20), pedestrians (13) and motorcyclists (10).

The remaining three deaths were cyclists.

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Jack White is a reporter for The Irish Times

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