This is one tough hull. July 14th, shortly after the blast off for the NW division of the FLW federation qualifier on the lower Columbia River close to Portland, OR. I noticed three outward bound ocean going freighters perhaps 1/2 mile to my east. The sky was gray, water same, gray. The wakes from the vessels seemed aways off from where several of the tournament boats were racing for the meeting point of the two rivers, I was in that bunch.

The wakes were seen too late! My foot came off the hot foot, didn't make any difference to the boats speed, last seen was the tack sitting on 6200rpm. Next view was the boat launching high into the air and traveling through the air. Landing on another wake about mid-vessel, mid wake (high point of wake). After striking that wake the boat speared the next wake bow under water, then popped up, motor stalled.

I knew right away from the pain in my lower back that this was a serious injury, other boats stopped, one boater helped me out and onto the deck of his Ranger where I stayed until the CG arrived roughly 15 minutes later. I'm not going into details about the next 8 weeks in bed, two of the weeks spent in the Portland, OR trauma center IC unit. The L-1 in lower back was fractured into six fragments.

The hull looks to be in great shape, the top cap was torn off, along with windshields, both gps units, trolling motor. This is the way the boat has been described to me by buddies as I still haven't been able to make the trip from the Seattle area to Vancouver, WA where the boat is at a friends home waiting for pick-up me next week. The motor was ran for 45 minutes after this accident and still is serviceable (less than 100 hrs on new power head 250 HPDI) and for sale along with the hull and trailer, all 2004 vintag