I’ve fished around most of the piers in the river and you’ll have to be so close you’d hit the pier before you hit bottom. The exception being I’ve never been that close to the Peace Bridge piers, but with the current there you’d have to be completely crazy to get your boat that close at speed anyway. The current is so strong the piers throw off a 2 foot wake.
They are built with a TON of flotation but I am not convinced it would keep the boat afloat. I actually was assuming that in the OP’s pics, the back of the boat is sitting on ground.
how do they go about pulling a boat in thats half way submerged?
Tow it in with a much larger boat, likely winched it towards the ramp once they got close?
yep, one hell of a winch.
They hit bottom at 11PM and ripped a hole in the hull and started taking on water. Beyond that you’re free to speculate. The guy that was cashing me out at Collins said it was his buddy so I decided it’d be a dick move to press for any more details. I didn’t see the boat there. :shrug:
Sounds about like what I described. Only thing I can think of they could hit in that area would be that shoal I mentioned.
NYSpeed boat crew… STUDY YOUR CHARTS, especially if you’re going to be out running after dark. 
That’s one of the reasons why I almost never boated at night. Couple that with a 4 ft tide change and your in trouble real quick. Of course where I am from you don’t have to worry about large rocks, it’s mostly just mud and sand.
Bottom line, night or not, you need to know the waters you’re in. The area I’m thinking they hit hides the rocks about a foot under water. If you didn’t know it was there chances are you’d take the same route into Buffalo harbor from the river in the middle of the day too. Since I’ve been boating around here I’ve personally seen 2 boats in trouble on that shoal and I rarely even head out that way.
eeek, rocks under 1 foot of water…that’s super shitty.
Yeah, depends on the lake level, but it’s a serious hazard. When the lake is really low I’ve seen them sticking out of the water in spots. This year it’s probably about 2 feet under. What makes it even worse is the current is really strong there because it’s where the lake funnels into the river under the bridge. If you hit while on plane you come off plane then get dragged over the rocks by the current or you get stuck on the rocks with the strong current making it a real bitch for anyone to help you. The last boat I saw stuck there I was the first on scene to stop and offer help. Problem was with the current and rocks I couldn’t get without 30 feet of them. We just called the coast guard and hung out down river from them below the shoal in case the boat came off the rocks and sunk or capsized. When the coast guard got there they said they were going to do the same thing until Tow Boat US showed up with a plan. At that point I wanted to stay and watch how they got out but shot over to the Ford plant for some great fishing instead. By the time we went back hours later everyone was gone. It didn’t make the news so it must not have sunk.
I realized last summer that there is a way to go on the inside of the shoal on the Buffalo side near the break wall just because I watched a boat do it. I saw one do it this year too and the whole time I was watching I kept waiting for him to come to a sudden stop but he made it too. I’ve never tried it and I doubt I ever will either.
My father in law has been boating around here his whole life. He was telling me last year that there’s a path but it’s only about 10 feet wide. You’re better off just cruising around the lighthouse and water intake then pointing it at the lighthouse at erie basin marina if you want to get in there.
I followed the sheriff boat on a slightly shorter way in a couple times where now I’m confident going on the inside of the round house in daylight. It involves driving toward the red can until you can see down the side of the break wall then heading toward the wall. You go on the outside of one shoal and the inside of the one closer to the round house. There’s a considerable gap there to aim for based on the puttering around and fishing I’ve done. I wouldn’t try it at night though and that way still has you going on the outside of the bad shoal. I’d love to go with someone who knows how to take that path on the inside but I’m not risking it myself.
A couple weeks ago I went through the black rock lock for the first time. Pretty cool just for something to check out. The lock is free and runs upstream on the half hour and downstream on the hour. I wasn’t 100% sure if there was a no wake zone in the black rock canal so I said fuck it and went about 30 mph. We did slow to no wake in front of the Buffalo Yacht Club since they had no wake markers out. I met a coast guard auxiliary right near the bridge to squaw island and he didn’t say anything so I assume it’s not a no wake zone.
Ugh that sucks. All those shoals must suck to navigate… I’ll stick to lake Ontario and rip 80mph all day with no worries lol…
Be safe!
I’ll stick to Silver Lake and other small lakes that we can tube, ski, wakeboard and do some fishing in. I get nervous when i think about taking the boat out in the river or into Lake Erie. I’m totally new to boating and I would not do very good.
Wow lmao…
I was over at Collins late yesterday helping my father on his boat and it still wasn’t there, but the truck/trailer wasn’t either.
A boat can sink in less time than it takes for you to realize what happened.
There is a speed limit in the canal. I think it’s 6 MPH…if it isn’t 6 MPH it’s something very close to that.
Anyway…I wonder if that boat was even an I/O. If it wasn’t an I/O, they could have whacked it on the rocks, snapped a prop shaft off and had it fall out of the boat. Now you have a pretty big hole. Just another theory…
Wow, surprised that coastie didn’t say something to me then. He definitely saw me doing between 25 and 30. I slowed when we met because that channel isn’t all that big right near the lift bridge. He just smiled and waved as we passed about 30 feet apart.
Oh I know a boat can sink fast, I was commenting on how long it will take to sink with a drain plug not installed. Knock a hole in the outdrive boot or in the hull, and in seconds your engines are top over and shes goin in.