Two men found dead inside drifting boat off Queensland coast

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by Connemara

And just to quibble with the report itself: "twin-hulled catamaran"? As opposed to all those mono-hulled catamarans out there?

Connemara

That quote was approved by the Department of Redundancy Department!

[Heg]

Originally Posted by Connemara

And just to quibble with the report itself: "twin-hulled catamaran"? As opposed to all those mono-hulled catamarans out there?

Connemara

Yep. I commented on the same thing

[JC Reefer]

Sad way to go. You never know when it’s going to come. Hope they didn’t suffer.

[inspectr]

We humans are very fragile
A slip and fall in the bathroom has killed several of my friend's parents, 1.8m tall, a simple fall enough to create a sufficient impact to kill
Imagine the impact at 25 knots plus
We hit an uncharted coral outcrop in the Whitsundays doing 4 knots just outside of the channel and on the leads. 35 foot sailing yacht, under headsail only. Wife in the bathroom at the time, thrown forward hits bulkhead, depressed fracture of cheekbone, black eyes and severely disorientated
Could have been a whole lot worse
These guys obviously hit something very hard and immobile at speed, just unlucky I guess, but maybe excessive speed for circumstances - who knows
May their souls rest in peace and their families gain some comfort from knowing that they died doing something they loved.

[Droo]

Hitting a rock at 20 kt is approximately equivalent to falling from a height of 30 feet, hardly a trivial impact.

[JAFO]

Originally Posted by Gustuv Wynd

makes me think that maybe I should listen to my wife and not go out solo as often as I do.

It's still safer than driving solo in a car, and you do that without a second thought, right?

[Hotboy]

I have sailed around the area the boat was found. The power cat appears to be a fisherman’s boat and although offshore is relatively clear, inshore there are quite a few hazardous rocks. Most are accurately marked on charts but if the tragedy occurred at night as suspected it can be difficult to avoid if sighted too late. I have no opinion regarding this incident but only highlight I use caution when navigating in this area in daylight hours. There are no close towns or villages to Island Head Creek as it is near to an army warfare training area.

[Sojourner]

I feel like some of y'all ain't diggin what I'm getting at when I say 'strange'.... Yes, if I go dancing around the side of a wet pool, I might slip and fall. And die from it. Not very very likely, as most would agree, but certainly within the realm of possibility (altho I have slipped and fallen on ice in colorado more times than i can count, hasn't done me in yet...anyway).

BUT if you were walking with me at the pool, and I fall and grab you and we both fall together, the odds of us BOTH dying go up EXPONENTIALLY. Ie: the odds of death from a slip and fall are 1 in 127 (National Safety Council Stats). This I assume is mainly frail/elderly, but let's just say it's for everyone. You and I BOTH dying of a slip and fall (by the law of probability multiplication) is 1 in 16,129. Not betting odds by any shot.

Boating is a lot safer statistically.... The American Boating Assoc says probability of death in boating accidents is 6 per 100,000 registered boats. Or 6/100000. And I'm pretty sure this includes high speed boats and jetskis. TWO deaths resulting from the same random belowdeck fall at 10 or even 20 knots as people are suggesting (as opposed to a single event of the type that just happened with Mr Wonderful's wife a few weeks ago) would be 36/10,000,000,000, or 1 in 277 million.

So, yes, it's a bit strange no matter what they hit, that two healthy individuals would both crack their noggins just right to end their lives simultaneously.

[mikedefieslife]

Most seem to have assumed that the men died from impact injuries. This hasn't been proven as yet, though the article suggested it was a possibility. They could just have easily died beforehand with the boat continuing to motor until it hit something hard.

[CaptTom]

Shortly after sighting an 8' by 8' piece of wooden floating debris a few evenings ago, I saw no less than three small boats, comparable in size to the one in the article, go by at well above 20 knots, in the same area, in the dark.

There's no doubt in my mind that, had one of them hit it, one or two people could have died on board. I don't need math, only my own experience boating at night, and knowing the forces involved in a sudden stop. I once saw someone's head go almost through a car windshield from a sudden stop in a parking lot - not even at highway speeds. and well below 20 knots.

Just over a year ago, two were killed and one seriously injured in a nighttime crash into a buoy just a mile or two from where I sit now. Speed was estimated around 20 knots.

Yeah, it can happen. Hopefully the final report will tell us whether it did happen in this case.

[Fore and Aft]

Sojourner anything’s possible, that bow had a massive impact and it’s not like we wear seat belts when Boating. I doubt anything criminal would have happened, it is fairly remote up there.
There was a sailing cat off the QLD coast that was found drifting around with the three crew missing. Another mystery that was never solved.
I met a guy this year with a bad limp. He told me his 18 foot power boat hit a sand bank and the unsecured outboard battery flew forward and snapped his ankle! So freak accidents do happen
Cheers
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaz_II