X-Rated30

I think you are missing the point. According to the article, it seems the racers were told it was safe to race when it was not:

"It took three and a half minutes for the trained divers in the helicopter to deploy after the crash. I have been told that’s because the divers in the angel ship (helicopter) were told they were to act as second responders and to allow the personnel in the rescue boats to act as first responders.”

If this is true, then I am a little less concerned that a suit would be filed. I was in a rollover this year and there was no safety crew and it took less than a minute for us to be out of the water. I was a safety boat at the New Orleans race a few years ago, and those guys were on the ball. I can't imagine this happening there.

scarab63

Wouldn't racer participation forms signed nullify this lawsuit?????

It also comes down to personal judgment on conditions.

B.s. lawsuit

Kat Krazy

The laws that pertain to this type of law suit were written by lawyers. The language used leaves enough ambiguity that lawyers have something to argue about, while another lawyer who is now a judge listens in. When the Plaintiffs' hire a lawyer, the named Defendants then have to hire a lawyer.The insurance company will hire a lawyer, the boat manufacturer will hire a lawyer, the rigging company will
hire a lawyer, lets see we now have employment for no less than 5 lawyers and all of their staff back at the office.
Then we have the "experts", the "detectives", the "doctors", the "engineers" that will be hired by both sides.

Now take a look at the compensation that these people will receive. OK everyone deserves to get paid for working.
However, the plaintiff's lawyer most likely is not working by the hour but for 40% of the settlement if he wins
"plus" expenses. The defense lawyer will bill for every hour working on the case, so time spent thinking about the
case is billable. You can "think" about the case while driving home in traffic, while shaving, while using the head
or even having lunch.
None of these actions can ever bring back our 3 great racers. You cannot repave the track. You cannot line
the track with a foam Safer Barrier. You cannot prevent every possible accident, nor can you fore see every gust
of wind, every wake or every wave. All forms of racing have risk. Boat racing has more variables than most.
Do I want to race, NO! Do I want to see accidents at these races, NO! But do these boat drivers want to
race, YES. Do they know the risks involved, YES.

Would a helicopter with floats and diver following each race boat saved any of these racers? Only GOD can
answer that question. Will one heck of a lot of lawyers be richer before this is all over? I say yes.

Will offshore boat racing suffer because of the legal issues brought to court? I say yes.

Will the insurance on pleasure cat boats go up? I say yes.

BRUCE SEROFF

Then why bother having rescue divers at all. We know racing is dangerous and yes, we do sign a waiver, Which in my opinion, should not indemnify someone in a case of negligence. I believe that is the question here. Was negligence a direct cause of JG's death? At the end of the day, the racers count on safety divers, rescue personel, and paramedics to do everything in their power to make sure they survive a crash. I doubt very much, an insurance company would even look at you if you did not have rescue and medical personel and assets. I think the lawsuit is valid, if not for for anything else but to A: find out what really happened out there? B:Was negligence a direct cause of death? and C: Make sure it never happens again. At which point I believe the family would have some form of closure

Godspeed Joey

POWERPLAY J

Excellent post!

scarab63

rescue personnel is for rescues and is the first line of help but they still do not guarantee any racers well being by being on site. They are simply added peace of mind, and like you said needed for ins purposes.

Ive never raced boats, but have raced mx for many years and I know the participant waivers are usually pretty tight.

As with any motorsport the racers know the inherent risks and must also use their own personal judgment for conditions.

I could never ride as fast or clear the same jumps on wet vs dry track but I used my personal judgment on that and wasnt told by race organizers. The track was still safe, just required a different approach.

Bottom line theres no definition for safe boat racing conditions. One may say safe is 2` or less while another may say 6` or less is safe. So how do you challenge opinion in court????

I feel horrible for what happened last month, but nobody made any racers run them, it was free will.

Ron P

Well said Bruce.

Clearly facts are missing from this thread. Joey and Steve used the best air system that is offered from Tiger Performance. Many other teams use the same system.

The boat went from 100 to zero in about 1 second. The entire sequence of events was captured by still photos from a professional photographer on the turn boat just 50 yards away. All photos have time stamps. Those photos have been turned over to ALL parties involved.

From what I've heard, many things went wrong with this rescue and as race producer, I want to see a detailed explanation of exactly what went wrong and why Joey couldn't extract himself from his harness and why the air system failed to supply him with breathable air for the duration of the rescue.

I have my opinions, but this isn't the place to discuss.

Godspeed Joey and I hope any money from a lawsuit will help to replace Joey's income and help to ease the families financial pain.

As for Mike Allwiess - How could the family possibly retain anyone else? Mike has the knowledge and first hand experience of how to properly run an offshore racing event. I have no doubt that he'll be able to uncover the exact sequence of events that led to this tragedy. Until his investigation is complete, everything else is BS speculation. I only hope those findings are shared with the rest of us that produce these racing events as well as all race teams. Yes we need to learn from this, and from what I've gathered, Joey should not have died. This goes way beyond understanding the risks and signing a waiver.

At this time, I only have one question I'd like answered. After the Big Thunder accident on Wed, did SBI have a meeting with all of it's safety personnel to discuss the accident and how to better respond in the future? Or was there no safety meeting with the support assets between Wed and Friday?

These photos are from 2007 when the boat was new. I'll assume they continued to use the same air system over the years.

I'll miss my buddy Joey a great deal. He was one of the good guys.

BRUCE SEROFF

I dont want to get into a pissing match on here. being that you haven't raced offshore, let me ask you a hypothetical question.

You are racing a boat, canopied in this case. You crash, and survive the crash, but for what ever reason, can not free yourself from the boat while its filling up with water. wouldnt you be saying to yourself the divers will get me out? I know I would. Because that is why they are there. Piece of mind is BS. They are there for a reason. to save us if we cant save ourselves. PERIOD! The question is, were the first responders prepared and / or qualified to extracate in the event of a crash. That is the question.

C_Spray

You're kidding, right? That's a huge insult to the rescue staff.

As I've said many times, safety is an attitude, not a set of rules or collection of people and equipment. Any properly managed organization, whether it be a sanctioning body or a feather pillow manufacturer puts MORE effort into its safety and disaster plans than into its routine operations. You need to have your best resources instantly available when things go wrong. If not, the situation will deteriorate from bad to worse very quickly.

One thing that I would like to add to my comments is that at no point do I mean any disrespect to the actual rescue staff and workers at any of these races. These are highly skilled and dedicated people that take their work very seriously. That being said, if the organization that they work for does not provide them with proper organization, support and coordination, it makes the rescuers job far more difficult.

If SBI had proper procedures in place, and executed those procedures as planned, they have nothing to fear.

hotjava66

I agree with 100% with your goals, but why does it take a lawsuit and millions of dollars changing hands to make this happen? If someone was so negligent as to directly cause someones death they should be punished, but how does suing them for millions they can never pay (and will be paid by the rest of us in insurance) accompish that? Bottom line, no amount of money will bring someone back, or soothe the feelings or those who lost them. Is dragging the details of their passing through court for their family to agonize over really going to bring closure? Investigate, absolutely. Punish if there was gross negligence, yes. Try to learn from what happened and do the best to prevent it in the future, yes. Thats all I am going to say on this, these were real men with families who are without them now, and sometimes its hard to keep it that in perspective when stuff like this is discussed.