Holy smokes. Man, that thing gets dancing around a LOT. Scary.

When and where in Lakeland, FL? That's only about 15 miles from me and also not far from a few others here.

October 15th and 16th.

I'll probably fly in and out just for the weekend.

That boat is wild!

^ for sale thread in 3, 2, 1...

My youtube page has the livestream snipped down to just my class.

https://www.youtube.com/c/erat91/videos

My dad and Mikey are on their way to San Diego. They're making fantastic time, i think they're going to do some sightseeing. If you see them, wave. I'm flying in on Thursday and driving back while doing some sightseeing in the SW all next week.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...662a02c56d.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...95ce7061f9.jpg

Racing in SD? Sent you a FB DM.

Pretty cool setup. Has been an eventful afternoon but I'll let Dillon update as he sees fit.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e39f5a70ec.jpg
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Ugh. :rofl:

If you follow me on any social media or youtube, you already know.

Yeah what a disastrous weekend. For some reason Mike saw fit to completely overdrive the boat and the conditions on the very first lap of the very first race of the very first day, WHILE we drew lane 4 (we would of had lane 1 on the very next race). He also made two extremely bad mistakes; Adjusting the wing the WRONG way and driving into garbage water, while in a turn, before the boat was even set on the fin...
Ed Preston had just blown over the GP20 while we were strapping in. I told Mike to be careful, Ed isn't one to flip a boat like that, the conditions are bad and we don't have a prop to run a 2 mile course(lane 4). Then he went out and immediately flipped the boat.
Everything full of salt water for about an hour. All electronics are toast. Engine is hopefully savable. Hull needs pretty substantial rebuild. Depending if i buy a new tub or not, probably 15-20k in damages.

HUGE thank you to Ed and his friends who were just supposed to come down and watch, enjoy the racing, and enjoy the event. Instead decided to help me with damage control. We managed to get the engine running Saturday.

Mike spent about 60 second under water and the night in the hospital but is otherwise okay.
An accumulation of events(it's not worth getting into) lead to his immediate termination as soon as we got home.



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Wow.
The 37 second point would have put the fear of God in me.
It looks like he never really got it back.
Sorry for your loss

Wow sorry to see that, looks like a fun sport.

Ouch! That is a real bummer.

I didn't realise that you didn't drive, either way not a pretty sight to see an underwater video :eek5:. Is there an air supply for that situation?

Yes. We have an onboard air system. The air mask activates the moment water hits it.

We both drive. Or used to. I had Mike because I couldn't make all the events, so he would fill in. This particular event we were both at so we split driving duties.

It was a hell of an event to be at. I'd never seen hydrofoils in person before. Watching those unlimited class boats was insane. Was so, so bummed for Dillon and his dad, such a shitty situation. His dad was so worried when Mike went out. He told me as Mike pulled away from the dock "I wish Dillon was driving. I don't think this is going to go well."

He was right.

Eric, who works with Sonny in the warehouse (and is largely responsible for our new website, shameless plug) was thrilled to jump into action and help de-salt Dillon's engine after the flip. He's big into watersports, especially stand-up jet skis. It was more than we bargained for at the event but actually more interesting than just standing around in the sun watching the races. Glad we were able to lend a hand, plus Dillon gave us some cool shirts afterwards :D

Hope you can get her back on the water soon, Dillon. Are you going to look for another codriver or gonna do it solo from here on out?

Have you been able to confirm that the engine is OK?

Accepting applications for a co-driver if you don't mind splitting the cost.
Otherwise, i'm just going to run this myself. We have a good thing started with "Pro-Lite". This series puts us at 5-6 events with 100k+ people at each event. Bigger payout, better for sponsors. I won't need to hit 10 races, chasing high points doesn't really interest me. There are too many other people with much more money putting 60k miles on their tow vehicle each year trying to get high points.

I meant to call Chris about the engine but forgot. Stupid busy at work. Come home and spend whatever 2-3 hours of daylight left on the boat. I've been sanding down the bay, there are a few soft spots i want to take care of before they get any worse. Now is my opportunity.

Called the boat builder (Burt), who also happened to be in SD that weekend and saw the wreck. Got a new sponson with decking on order. Hopefully it shows up around Christmas. Wanted carbon fiber, could only afford fiberglass. We'll beef it up with plenty of carbon, it will be good.

Nice

Things have escalated slightly.
I've got $2600 in carbon fiber here and we're going to use it. Going to make it better.
I am JUST about at the point were i'm going to start rebuilding. Final bit of prep work, along with a good amount of prep work on the new-to-me canoe and we can hang that puppy.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f7ad0f5fad.jpg

such an insane amount of work. Will be fun to see it done. :likecat:

Little over a months worth of work, it doesn't seem like much work but i can assure you it is. So much prep. Working 8-10 hours then spending 4 hours a night out here. Lots of air fryer pizzas.

Almost all the decks ripped off.
Both engine rails replaced.
2 new spars built and installed.
Prepped sponson and installed.

Lots of beef being added. The engine is also done, there was $6000 worth of damage, crazy considering it started and ran. Could have been more had we not ran it.

Right now, i've got to finish taping in the sponson. Going to add a few hockey sticks and then decks go back in.



https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e4afedd178.jpg
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A couple of time lapse videos. Just doing the work takes a few hours, but there is many many hours before this in prep work before the video.


Trying to be ready for the end of April, test & tune... It's going to be tight that's for sure.
Plus during the middle of all this we had a bad ice storm, knocked the power off my house. This was 11 days ago now and the power company still hasn't been out to hang the power back on the pole. I ended up running it to the house next door and tapped into their wire. 30 minutes and a couple split bolts later and i've got power again.

Damn man, so bummed to hear the engine had that kind of damage. I really hoped we had rescued it :cry: