We just received an email from Soundings magazine, featuring a video of a boat going in circles with the throttle wide open. Unfortunately, nobody was on the boat to keep it under control, slow it down, or stop it from hitting anything.
The video was uploaded to YouTube a few days ago by the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) near Cornwall in England.
Besides the dramatic headline and content of the video, it really jumped out at us because it is a perfect example of why boaters should use an automatic killswitch such as those available from one of our advertisers, Autotether. If the fisherman who was knocked off the runaway boat in this video had
an Autotether, his engine would have been cut off the moment he fell out
of the boat, and the RNLI wouldn't have had to risk their lives to stop
the boat from potentially hurting others.
While Autotether is generous enough to advertise on our network of boating sites with banner ads, this post is not part of their package and they did not ask us to write this. We are just proud that one of our partners makes an awesome product that save lives, as well as the resources of organizations like the RNLI. More about Autotether at www.autotether.com.
Hat tip to Soundings for alerting us to this video; the Soundings article also has more details on the story.
You can also visit the website for the RNLI to learn more about that truly life saving organization, and if you think they are as amazing as we do in this video, consider making a donation.
As someone who has corralled a boat after it ejected its operator I can attest that approaching a runaway, unoccupied and out of control boat is a very difficult and highly dangerous maneuver. Those guys at the RNLI did a great job trying different methods until they found a technique which worked for that situation. Ethan, Sea Tow
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