Divers find my lower unit 15 months after high speed accident

**arcticracer** · 10-10-2004, 04:05 PM

After 3 or 4 tries, my diver buddy's team of 3 found the lower unit that was the cause of an accident in June 03. The boat was a 16' Barracuda Tunnel, 1970, with a Merc 2 Litre 150. I was on the Chena River which is about 100 feet wide, cutting a straight line down the middle and preparing to go under a highway bridge. When you go under this bridge, you must immediately crank it right HARD after the last piling where the river takes a 45 degree right turn. At the instant of the hard right my RPM shot up, I got off the Hot Foot fast, then I realized I had NO STEERING. I watched helplessly as the river bank started coming up fast, I was making a gradual left turn from the right sponson having more weight on it than the left.

Fortunately the bank there was gravel, gradually sloped, and there was about a 15 foot slide before I would hit the cutbank. I hit ground, the boat jumped up into the air then came back down, sliding up the bank. I stuffed the bow into the cutbank about a foot, most of my speed was gone fortunately and my only injury was a cut on my leg where I hit the dash.

Look at the pictures and read my description and see if you can figure out what happened. The prop was already damaged before the accident, I did not hit anything. There was no noise other than my engine speed going off the tach.

**arcticracer** · 10-10-2004, 04:07 PM

Notice the shaft is bent

**arcticracer** · 10-10-2004, 04:11 PM

I am taking the divers to dinner tonight. He refused payment, he had taken it on as a personal challenge after not finding it the fitst try.

**arcticracer** · 10-10-2004, 04:16 PM

I was real lucky this time, I almost hit two Kayakers who saw the whole thing in front of them. Now, what happened?

**Gordie Miller** · 10-10-2004, 04:27 PM

will probably be more telling. Do you have any taken immediately after the accident?

**T-REX** · 10-10-2004, 04:58 PM

My quess(wit out any further info and juss goin by what I see) wuz dat if your prop wuz dat bad, it could have set up a high rpm vibration that caused midsection failure...I've seen bent props shake engine bolts out, break geercases, woller out carriers, and break mid sections,and they are hard to detect at high rpm...tha slower U go, tha more U kan feel tha vibration...sumtimes, U kan't feel it at all!!!....Juss my quess, REX

**arcticracer** · 10-10-2004, 05:04 PM

You're right, I should include mid pics. I don't have any pics from right after the accident.

**arcticracer** · 10-10-2004, 05:06 PM

Another view

**arcticracer** · 10-10-2004, 05:10 PM

By the way the boat looked a lot like a Missile, I sold it this summer without an engine for $2000.

**T-REX** · 10-10-2004, 05:52 PM

Wuz tha bolts sheered of like they apeer in tha foto???

**Raceman** · 10-10-2004, 06:28 PM

I'm with Rex on the vibration causing it. The sheered off bolts support that theory also. I was looking for exhaust relief in the mid, thinking it may have contributed, but since there is none, seems obvious it vibrated until stuff started letting go. Probably started with the shattering of the two down studs. Did the rear bolt above the trim tab (sacrificial annode) pull out or was it broken also?

**Bill Gohr** · 10-10-2004, 06:53 PM

since the front fasteners are still in tact, the back ones were loose or gone. Never saw rear studs shear off before, and where is the rear bolt? The fact that the front of the exhaust housing broke off with tight studs it means the back half of the contact surface was loose. See the chafe marks underneath? Probably snapped the rear studs as the gearcase twisted sideways. Bending the driveshaft is common, every gearcase someone has found in the lake has a bent shaft. I had a guy bring me an omc gearcase that the shaft was bent at a complete 90.

**arcticracer** · 10-10-2004, 11:41 PM

All 3 rear bolts were gone before the incident. In the picture it looks like the studs were broken. Not sure what happened to them but it was negligence on my part to not check them more often.

**Raceman** · 10-11-2004, 06:36 AM

"All 3 rear bolts were gone before the incident."

Do you mean that you ran it KNOWING ahead of time that all three rear ones were gone, or just determined it from the pics? I would think no support from the rear would cause that same failure every time.

**2 De River** · 10-11-2004, 08:54 PM

I agree with you the rear bolts gone and the damaged prop shaking it to hell it was an accident looking for a place to happen, just luck kept you from being killed, I check my bolts regularly, I have found them loose before and if it shakes it goes slowly to the beach. One other thing was the steering arm still intact when this all settled down, my son broke a steering arm a while back and it took a hard right fortunately he wasn't up to top speed when it happened. It could have been nasty it is a Mirage River Racer with a 280.