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Columbia River Boaters- HELP!


-BS-

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Hi all-  I know this is a long shot, but crazier things have happened........

 

I need your help finding 2 boats that were on the water, in the Chinook Landing area, on Saturday July 2nd around 3PM:

 

Boat #1 is an all Blue, newer LSV.  Maybe 2013 or 2014.  These young guys & gals were surfing in the Camas Slough and were running a drone video taping their rider.  I'm hoping they have footage of, or information about, boat #2  (who came within inches of running me over as a downed rider).   This boat might even have seen the incident in question. Hopefully...

 

Boat #2 is a fishing vessel, closely resembling a 20' Hewes Craft Sportsman, seen HERE ,with a custom wrap that said GOVETERANS.ORG in large yellow text across the port and starboard sides of the vessel.  (it may not say exactly GOVETERANS.ORG, but it was something very similar).  Either way, this is a pretty recognizable boat and, because I've seen this boat before on the river, I know he is local.   Possibly launching out of Camas/Washougal or Chinook Landing.....

 

Here's what happened: We were surfing.  He started following us too closely (directly behind us).  We waved our flag at him to remind him he was following a slow moving vessel with a rider in tow.  He decided he couldn't simply stop and wait his turn.  He tried to overtake our boat.  Right when he pulled out from behind us, he (finally) realized there were 2 boats heading the opposite way, making for 3 wide in a narrow(ish) channel....... At that moment, I lost the wave and our flag went up.  At that same moment, he realized he couldn't overtake our boat (and again, wasn't going to wait for anyone), so he headed directly for me.  At this point he's probably 150' away from me, heading directly at me at +/- 25mph.  I put my board up and wave it frantically, screaming as loud as I can.  Now he's 75' from me.  I decide to take 4-6 frantic swim strokes to my right to, hopefully, avoid being hit.  He corrects his course, DIRECTLY AT ME.  I'm screaming my head off.  At this point he's 30' from me.  I realize I'm definitely going to get run over.  I start to duck dive when I FINALLY hear his boat come out of gear.  At his point all I see is the bottom of his hull.  He finally comes off plane less than 1' to the right of me.  His boat goes "coasting" by me (at 15mph) so close I can touch it.  I'm screaming.  He hears me screaming and turns 90 degrees to port, sending his stern straight across my face.  I'm still yelling.  He finally looks directly at me....  THEN......puts his boat in full speed reverse coming right at me.  I swim out of the way to avoid being hit a third time.  I'm shaking.   Scared as I've ever been.  I swim as fast as I can onto the swimstep of my boat, get out and go on a profanity laced tirade on the guy.  He says "you didn't have a flag up" (which was  a complete lie, the flag had been up twice for this jackhole).  I tell him to stay in the vicinity because I'm calling 911.  He says "you didn't have a flag up" again......then mashes his throttle and powers away into the sunset.   Of course in my frantic/scared half to death state of mind, I never got any boat numbers..........and I'm kicking myself for that today, because it sure would help the Marine Patrol locate this dude, which they are currently trying to do.

 

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this!  Stay safe out there!

 

 

 

Edited by -BS-
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That really sucks . . . Glad to hear you are safe though.

Good luck finding the guy.  After this story I'm going to have to remind my crew that if anything looks lime it's going to go wrong, get those cell phone rolling; or always have the GoPro going.

  • Like 2
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That's scary! Glad you're alive! See if you can't reach out to the local sign/wrap companies and see if any of them remember doing the wrap on that boat? From there you could probably sweet talk them into giving you the guys name or phone number. Good chance that whatever name is on the side of his boat is a company/group he's closely affiliated with...nothing like a furious boater with the power of TheCrew behind him to make someones life hell for a while via some bad publicity :)

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WOW! So I just did a quick internet look and did not come up with anything but might be worth more looking.  I know it does not fix anything but glad you are well.

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Wow does that suck. We go out on the Columbia pretty frequently but typically go out at James Gleason and head just east of the 205 Bridge. I'll keep my eye out for him and take some pictures if I see him to get you a OR/WN number. 

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Wow, so glad you didn't get hit.  It is scary to think of how much we trust other boaters around us, especially as a downed rider.   I hope somehow that guy is located!

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Check these links, maybe a boat from this event a little over a week ago.

http://www.columbian.com/news/2016/jun/26/fishing-outing-a-therapeutic-appreciation-for-veterans/

http://www.thereflector.com/news/article_16af9aa6-3d6a-11e6-864e-0770ca8672bb.html

The third picture in the 2nd link looks like a blue version of the boat you described via the link.

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You may already know this but there is a go*vets foundation.  I believe it's based out of AZ.  Probably a long shot if that's what was on the boat in question.  Good luck catching him!  

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B- So sorry this happened. Scary. Glad you are OK. Do you think he saw you or completely clueless? Fishermen can be tough. This spring we've had a few run-ins. We were working and water testing boats, they get all puffy chested and think they own the river. It's a public river! Your story reminds me of 2 stories I have:

1) My bachelor party at the lake 2005. We are surfing a lot in our bay. Dude in a fishing boat buzzes the back of our boat towing his kids on a tube. Really close.. Turns out he is the son of the owner a few cabins down from us, so we boat up to his dock and confront him. At this point we can tell he is highly intoxicated. We idle back to our dock and park the boat and head up to the deck to start the bbq. Neighbor to the South alerts us that another neighbor called him and says the guy is headed our way via beach. He walks up our stairs to our deck to find 20 dudes that are ready to pound him. You should have seen the look on his face. Priceless. He slowly backs down the stairs like a dog with his tail in between his legs... He thought we were 'campers from the next bay over hogging his bay'... (again, public lake) Last we ever saw or heard from the guy. No joke, 2 summers later a tree fell on their boat in a wind storm. Karma!!!! Last I ever saw of the boat..

2) This one was a few weeks ago. Boat family who goes to same church as my partner are on their boat on the upper Willy. They are anchored/floating, kids swimming in the water. Another boat headed straight at them. 4 adults on board the oncoming boat, none of them see them.. 300, 200, 100 yards. Horn, waving, screaming...Direct hit, over the transom, prop shreds the interior apart, boat destroyed. Little girl has majority of her leg severed by the prop :( Children's hospital has saved her leg last I heard. Circle back before we heard of this accident. Service customer comes in without his boat, says he wrecked his boat on logs or a dead head on the Upper Willamette. States that the damage isn't that bad, maybe $2-6k he states. Wants us to buy the boat at a discount, fix it and sell it. We simply state we need to see the boat. You wouldn't believe the stories we hear of people hitting submerged objects, saying it's not that bad and in reality it is thousands of dollars worth of damage. To make a long story short. The customer that said he hit logs on the Upper Willy is the one who hit the family!!!! Really? What is wrong with people? 

 

So happy you are alive B.

Edited by skurfer
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Sorry to hear @-BS- and glad you're okay.

I did spend about an hour yesterday searching around for Columbia river WA boats, wraps, fishing tournaments, guide boats, vets/veteran orgs, Hewett, etc. and can't come up with a pic of a boat with yellow lettering. Found one this morning, but it's for an event in IL/WI and a different type of boat, so I won't post it. If you want it I can pm it over, but I think you'll have more luck locally as suggested above (from their site they don't mention being nationwide).

Best of luck! Now that you've had a couple days to think about it do you have a plan of action for if/when you do locate this nuisance?

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@jk13

Well, for now I'm letting Clark County Marine Patrol do their job and just trying to assist with any additional information I can gather for them.  I'm actually blown away by how helpful the Deputy has been and how seriously he's taking it.  I kinda expected them to say "meh, stuff happens", but he has been following up on every angle available, and even discussing the possibility of charging him with criminal endangerment.  (That's gonna require me to track down the witnesses on the other boats though..... Again; I'm kicking myself for not collecting this info!!!) 

 

Now that said, I'm really hoping they find him before I run into him again on the water, because every time I replay the incident in my head, and remember that 'oh my god, I'm really going to die right now' feeling........ my blood absolutely boils.

 

And the part of the story I didn't even get into.... the part that I even have trouble typing without getting a little emotional.... is the part where 3 minutes before this happened, I had my 5 year old daughter in the water with me, trying to get her up (with me) on her very first surf run.  THANKFULLY, at the very last second, she chickened out and got back in the boat..... I said "ok, l'll just take a quick set since I'm in the water" ...... Not 2 minutes later this all happened.  Ugh.  

 

 

Again, thanks to everyone who is spending even 1 second helping me with this. You guys are awesome! 

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Just now, -BS- said:

 

... every time I replay the incident in my head, and remember that 'oh my god, I'm really going to die right now' feeling........ my blood absolutely boils.

 

And the part of the story I didn't even get into.... the part that I even have trouble typing without getting a little emotional.... is the part where 3 minutes before this happened, I had my 5 year old daughter in the water with me, trying to get her up (with me) on her very first surf run.  THANKFULLY, at the very last second, she chickened out and got back in the boat..... I said "ok, l'll just take a quick set since I'm in the water" ...... Not 2 minutes later this all happened.  Ugh.  

I can't imagine the knot that would be in your stomach had she been in the water with you. Anger could easily turn to homicidal rage at that point.

I hope this boater is identified and STRONGLY reminded why and how his actions were dangerous to those around him. 

Best of luck!

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Have you tried asking on local fishing forums? I would probably phrase it as if you saw a boat matching your description and wanted to contact the owner to get involved with the organization or something to that effect. 

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formulaben
20 minutes ago, -BS- said:

And the part of the story I didn't even get into.... the part that I even have trouble typing without getting a little emotional.... is the part where 3 minutes before this happened, I had my 5 year old daughter in the water with me, trying to get her up (with me) on her very first surf run.  THANKFULLY, at the very last second, she chickened out and got back in the boat..... I said "ok, l'll just take a quick set since I'm in the water" ...... Not 2 minutes later this all happened.  Ugh.  

OMG

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Your story is crazy, but the part about him slamming it into reverse and coming at you again, that part i would take very personal.  I hope you get him.

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