OK, I stand corrected on two counts...
 

Gotta love digital cameras and the ability to enlarge the photo, I can now see the dealer plate on the boat!

And my apologies - I said Channel and of course new it was Lakeport. That's what happens when you are on the other side of the lake, everything beyond the Weirs blurs together!

Still a very sad story unfolding here...

Am I the only one confused ? as I scroll down ,I don't seem to find any order in the posts.Last post was on the 16th and I key onto "more replies below currant depth"...and still can't find todays post. I'm a 3 on a scale of 10 when it comes to computer skills.....guess I need someone to explain things to me.

Do not worry about it, it's all bull anyway.

Pathetic media reporting
 

This week's Gilford Steamer - a local news rag - (emphasis added) reported the boat driver's name as "Erica Buzzard". Totally disrespectful and unprofessional, even though it was most certainly unintentional. Now how difficult it is to get a fact like this right? Doesn't the editor proof read?

On top of this, several of the news articles over the past week spelled both Winnipesaukee and Gilford incorrectly. How are we supposed to believe these articles, when these media cannot even get simple facts correct? Embarrasing to say the least.


http://granitestatenews.com/pdf/GIL.2008.06.19.pdf See page 2.

Drunk conviction or NOT, Mr. Littlefield admittingly was drinking which was verified by receipt information at the Dockside Restaurant and by accounts of witnesses who observed him impaired!

His accident killed an person as well as put himself, his wife and children and friends lives in jeopardy. Let's not forget, he cowardly left the scene of the accident, leaving the injured and could have assited them with Medical assistance.

We don't have the FACTS on the Diamond Island accident, so these two incidents can't be compared!

Here's what I saw
 

I had a look at the crash site on Saturday.I stayed a good 500-700 ft away as not to bother the homeowner,although I did not see any indication of anyone there.It seems little doubt in my mind Erica was headed for Sleepers Island and crashed into Diamond.Obviously she did not see this very unlit island.It appears the the boat hit a 5-6 ft shear wall of granite that would be in the direct path to Diamond.Looking at that wall and also the damage to the boat,it would appear to me it would not take very much speed to result in the damage seen on her boat.The boat had to come to an immediate stop.This is ONLY my uneducated perception of what I've seen.Take it for what it is but I'll be very surprized that when the investigation is complete and if there is a speed determination that it will be more than 20-30 mph.Let me say again that this is just a pure guess on my part but I would think weather will turn out to be the main factor in the crash.

I am very curious as to why Marine Patrol has taken this amount of time to make a statement. If the driver was impaired in anyway shape or form, I would think Marine Patrol would make a statement about the incident. If you think about crashes that take place and kill or seriously hurt someone, the police always make some statement about whether alcohol or drugs were a factor. This incident has been hush hush, which I don't understand.

The boats driver was in critical condition, I believe in an induced coma. They would most likely need to interview all parties involved before they can make a statement of any kind.

I understand that the driver was seriously hurt. However, that would not prohibit Marine Patrol from taking blood samples. I would assume that Marine Patrol could do a lot for speculation, one way or the other.

Please have patience...
 

This is an extremely serious & sensitive incident. And unlike motor vehicle fatalities, which hapen at an all too often pace even here in New Hampshire, boating fatalities remain a rare event.

The New Hampshire Marine Patrol has perhaps its best and most seasoned investigator at the helm of this investigation, Lt. Tim Dunleavy. I am confident that Dunleavy will conduct an accurate and thorough investigation, and the results of his labor will become fully public at the appropriate juncture.

I would rather the authorities involved, which are obviously the NHMP and most likely a review being conducted by the Belknap County Attorney's Office, take all the time possible to examine all the evidence before coming to any conclusion. Premature speculation on behalf of the investigating authorities could have extremely damaging effects on the victims.

Each case is diufferent. For example, a few weeks ago a woman was killed just over the border in Berwick, Maine in a hit & run accident. The authorities quickly identified the driver but have continued to investigate with no arrest imminent, even though the driver has been identified. Initially the family was upset and went to the media. But after a meeting between the family and the investigators the family is now satisfied with the case and willing to be patient.

There is a lesson to be learned here.

As long as the families directly involved are satisfied with the pace and scope of the investigation, maybe we, as curious spectators, should be respectful and patient as well.

I comprehend your point and confident that Lt. Dunleavy will do the best job he can. While there are far less boating fatalities, nonetheless, this is not the 1st one. Do you think Marine Patrol has given info to the families involved? Of course not! They have given them bits and pieces but not the whole piece. I'm sure, at some point soon, one of the papers will file papers for the Right to know. If that happens, then they will have to make a statement vs. being proactive.

Woodsy, everyone is calling for "no speculation", but you're already calling the speed under 25!

If you'd been at the scene, you'd see that the "6' vertical wall" is actually much less than that. If I'd been standing in a canoe, I'd be looking down at that "wall", not up, and I'm under 6' tall, I assure you.

Even now, as the summer continues to empty the lake, the lake is not at the same level as when I was there. If we're going to speculate as to speed, as SIKSUKR and Woodsy are here, it's really too late to see if the wall is really only 4' or even 3', and the boat well up on plane.

The existing boat could be put on a test sled, and see how far an unsecured anchor would fly.... to strike a wood target at deck height ....when the sled's forward momentum is arrested by cable or chain.

Now, why is it okay to speculate here today and to abandon the discussion already started at the Speed Limits sub-forum? "Hush-hush" seems to be the word of the day!

And isn't Lt. Dunleavy the officer who converted Littlefield's self-suggested 2800 rpms into 28mph?

A "fact" we've been stuck with all these years?

That speed of 28mph was not plucked out of the air but was confirmed in ways other than rpm claimed by the operator. It was determined by exhaustive testing and accident reconstruction by extremely qualified MP officers and personnel. To suggest other is inflammatory and disrespectful to those entrusted by the State to investigate. If LT. Dunleavy said 28mph, then that is what it was.

Right to Know Law...
 

Just a few final comments.

This is an active law enforcement investigation. As long as the investigation is ongoing the agencies investigating are not subject to disclosure under 91-A (Right to know law).

In many motor vehicle cases where preliminary results are released almost immediately it is because the individual charged was able to give a concious donation of blood, breath or urine and the resulted in immediate arrest. In cases where samples are taken for analysis relative to someone unable to give consent there usually is a much longer process involved. In very serious cases a subsequent charge, if the evidence so dictates, may not occur until an indictment is handed down by a grand jury. Let me add that in this particular case there has been no evidence yet released to indicate that any laws were violated.

Finally, I have no idea and no desire to speculate on what communications may have occured between the families and the investigating authorities. I only gave an example of a nearby case where weeks have passed and no arrest has yet been made, to show that the one week that has occured since this incident is neither unusual nor precedent setting.

The only thing I do know, and will repeat for the last time, is that I have full confidence that the assigned investigators will conduct a proper investigation and release all necessary information to the public in a timely, legal and fair fashion.

Meanwhile, outside of this forum, the rumor mill is in full gear. I am not going to repeat what I have heard as it's all ridiculous and in some cases disrespectful. My point is look what happened when Moses went up the mountain. People don't change! I for one will wait for official communications.

Thank you Skip for your perspective, I couldn't agree more.

I would think that the person would have to be able to give permission to have blood taken and tested. In absense of that, I would think the police would have to obtain a warrant, and I am sure there would be some sort of court decision. Put it this way, if she were my daughter, I would not want someone taking her blood for anything other than a medical reason. I would fight that as hard as I could. Prove that she acted criminally, then we will talk. Innocent until proven guilty.

That's my opinion, whatever that may be worth.

:rolleye1: Estimated to be 28 mph, he estimated it.:rolleye1:

From a medical standpoint, the hospital would already know at this point however with the medical privacy laws it would take a court order for the investigators to access them. Coming from somewhat of a medical background I can say that they would definitely have to do a full blood screening during the initial triage and for the ongoing treatment process. If there was alcohol, illegal drugs or prescription meds in her system they would have to know immediately as it could have serious effects with other meds used during treatment,

Mandatory testing....
 

First, let me reiterate that no evidence has been provided to the public indicating that any crime has taken place in reference to the discussed incident.

That said, I provide the following RSA to show that in the case we are discussing, mandatory blood testing must occur as required by State law. Consent is not optional.



265-A:16 Blood Testing of Certain Motor Vehicle Fatalities. – When a collision, boating accident, or OHRV accident results in death or serious bodily injury to any person, all drivers or operators involved, whether living or deceased, and all deceased vehicle, boat, or OHRV occupants and pedestrians involved shall be tested for evidence of alcohol or controlled drugs. A law enforcement officer, authorized agent, or peace officer shall request a licensed physician, registered nurse, certified physician's assistant, or qualified medical technician or medical technologist to withdraw blood from each driver or operator involved if living and from the body of each deceased driver or operator, deceased occupant, or deceased pedestrian, in accordance with RSA 611-B:14, II, for the purpose of testing for evidence of alcohol content or controlled drugs; provided that in the case of a living driver or operator the officer has probable cause to believe that the driver or operator caused the collision or accident. All tests made under this section shall be conducted by the forensic science laboratory established in RSA 106-B:2-a or in any other laboratory capable of conducting such tests which is licensed under the laws of this or any other state and which has also been licensed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act of 1988, as amended. A copy of the report of any such test shall be kept on file by the medical examiner. The filed report is not a public record under RSA 91-A. However, the report shall be made available to the following:
I. Any highway safety agency for use in compiling statistics to evaluate the effectiveness of its program; and
II. Any person, including his or her legal representative, who is or may be involved in a civil, criminal, or administrative action or proceeding arising out of an accident in connection with which the test was performed.

Thanks for clearing that up for me Skip...guess my logic is a bit off.

But please don't think I was insinuating a criminal act occurred in this instance. That was not my intent.

No problem Chip...
 

Nope Chip, didn't think you were insinuating anything, and you raised a very good point....a belief that many folks share.

While most of us agree that rampant speculation and gossip can be harmful in a situation like this, an intelligent discussion of different points like you and others have raised provide an opportunity for each of us to educate ourselves on the issues pertinent to the incident.

Medical testing vs. legal testing
 

The test results used for medical purposes are not used by law enforcement. They require their own separate samples and process it in their own lab. My guess is that this preserves the chain of evidencebecause only law enforcement approved people access the samples and removes any legal wrangling as to whether the hospital should have shared personal medical information with law enforcement. It also removes ethical problems for doctors who are supposed to treat patients vs. aiding in their prosecution.

I agree with Skip, let's agree that this is a tragedy and wait for the professionals to evaluate what happened.

My prayers for all involved and their families.

Given, but it was based on the accident reconstruction and investigation. Don't roll your eyes so much. They may stick that way. (OWT);)

Who was driving?
 

It might have been Erica's boat, but who says she was driving? Maybe she was letting someone else drive, that may explain a lot.

Somewhat true, but in the case of alcohol where the BAC drops steadily when not being "supplemented" a sample taken later is useless (thus Littlefield's flight). Try waking a judge at 3am on a Sunday morning to get authorization to get a sample. In this case it would have to come from tests done at the hospital.

My post in no may is insinuating any thoughts or speculation of alcohol being related.

Was alcohol involved?
 

Substantial information surrounding the crash is now being investigated, including the possibility that alcohol was involved.

Latest developments in this morning's CITIZEN.

I hope this wasn't the case, but just an unfortunate accident.

From my standpoint,Dunleavy is doing the right thing here.All of these items and circumstances must be investigated.It does not infere these occupants were inpaired but it does need to be confimed or not.As hard for me as it is to see implications of DWI,I believe it has to be looked at.

Rebuttal
 

Again, :confused:Clearly some people that read the forum do not read the whole posting when they feel someone is wrong, As I would like to draw attention to the last line of my post in big capital letters.
To continue this though: if I am not mistaken the bow letters are supposed to be above the Rub rail, hence the reason for my post. Just a mere pointing out of what i saw in the photo and that is it.

Wow. This article shows that someone was drinking. Now, whether the person(s) were impaired is a different story. At what speed would a boat need to be traveling to be on plane? I'm sure that Formula could answer this question. Only time will tell but it does not look good.

Those several empty beer cans could have already been in the boat or from earlier in the day/evening.

According to the tests on this hull, it looks to plane off at about 19/20 mph.

http://www.boattest.com/oem/general-...381#TestResult



If you care to run the math, this will get you close:

Minimum Planing Speed in Knots:

2.3 x ((32.2 x (all up displacement in pounds)^0.333)^0.5)/1.6889

For example, an 18' boat at 2,323.2 pounds (including crew) may plane at 13.902 knots.

The formula has no input for the shape of the hull. It just calculates the speed required to lift 2300 pounds. It also does not indicate how difficult it will be to get the hull to 13.9 knots. However, in my ignorance, I believe it may be somewhat representative. If the boat was surfing down a wave at 13.9 knots, it may very well be planing.

Looks like Uncle Ray got "called in".

A rule of thumb is that the larger the city, hospital, emergency room, fire department or police force, the more sophisticated the attention to official inquiry. Europe, I'm reading today, has the technology to find fingerprints on anything made of metal, even if it's old or submerged. European laboratories are far better funded than US laboratories.

When an agency has only a handful of annual investigations like this one (or even fewer), it's not going to be sophisticated at all. Worse, the investigation in a tourist-dependent state is subject to fierce political and economic community pressures.

Perhaps "the showing to the door" of Safety Director Dick Flynn will change that impression, but funding to the NHMP is already such a rarity that the radar guns, the radar survey, and officer's radar training were grieved as major expenses. Or so we were told here. The survey itself was widely criticized as unscientific, and suggested a political pressure at work to make the findings "turn out right".

The presence of alcohol evidence has turned this discussion to the real intent of the NHRBA, and that is to perpetuate a party-hardy atmosphere for Winni's cowboys. We haven't heard from the primary proponent of A.I.S. lately, especially with today's potentially embarrassing link to the NHRBA. It's too late to impeach the president of NHRBA now, but it could happen.

I hope you're wrong about the driver behind the wheel. That driver might be the one who cannot speak in defense.

Here you go again...yet one more COMPLETELY uncalled for post.

Another story:

Jun 24, 10:48 AM EDT
Alcohol may have been involved in NH boat crash

GILFORD, N.H. (AP) -- Investigators are looking into possible criminal charges in a fatal boating accident on New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee last week.

In court documents, the Marine Patrol said it is investigating whether the death of 34-year-old Stephanie Beaudoin, of Meredith, was a negligent homicide.

Court affidavits say a surviving passenger, 34-year-old Nicole Shinopulos, of Burlington, Massachusetts, told investigators she and the two other women on the boat had been drinking before they crashed into Diamond Island around 2:30 a.m. on June 15.

The boat's driver, 34-year-old Erica Blizzard, of Laconia, suffered serious injuries. Blizzard is the president of the New Hampshire Recreational Boaters Association, which has opposed boating speed limits on the lake.

She is in stable condition at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...06-24-10-48-28
------------------

And, as I posted earlier, the boat was going too fast for the conditions.

Please don't take this the wrong way:

How fast were they going again? I don't recall reading what the investigators determined their speed to be?

As a general comment, enough with the speculation. We need to let the investigators sort this out before anybody jumps to conclusions.

Can we get some hard facts please...like the Marine patrol accident log form last year...if any one wants to point fingers at who had the most accidents and why lets see who they really were. I can not stand the finger pointing at people apposed to the speed limit. SPEED???:rolleye1:Let's try someone making a bad judgment....plain and simple folks!

Investigation is in competent hands...
 

Normally I ignore deliberate attempts to troll, but I'll make an exception this time to reassure the readers that this invetigation is in safe & capable hands.

As has been noted by numerous public sources, the lead investigator is Lt. Tim Dunleavy of the NHMP. Dunleavy is a career full time law enforcement supervisor that is recognized by the New Hampshire Court system, Underwriters Labratory and the United States Coast Guard as an expert in boat accident reconstruction amongst a number of other qualifications & duties, and can and has succesfully testified to same.

He also has extensive experience in responiding to, investigating, and succesfully prosecuting numerous criminal violations of the State's boating regulations, including a fair share of the fatalities that have occured on our waters the last few decades.

Finally, numerous serious crimes occur throughout our State in various small locals on an annual basis. All Departments in this State utilize neighboring community experts, each County Attorney's Office, the State Attorney General's Office, the NH State Police, the State Police Crime Lab and a long list of private and federal agencies to assist in all levels of evidence gathering and criminal investigation and prosecution.

The root cause of this tragedy will be thoroughly investigated and the public will have timely and relevant material released at the appropriate juncture, just as today's new stories have proven.

While it takes only the ability to operate a keyboard to be a troll, rest assured that the folks in charge of this investigation are much more qualified than the naysayers at their respective craft.

Skip

Well Blackdogs, they are investigating anything and everything, as many assumed. Your constant insinuations, riddled with sarcasm and demeaning language, pretty much put you in the position of an agenda poster. Regardless of the outcome of this accident, most of us could pretty much predict what you'd write for each potential outcome.

One of the chief criticisms in the SL arguments is that many of us have read about numerous accident stories, seen the raw data, and tried to discuss solutions as we both participate in boating and care for ourselves and others. While others have distorted data, misinterpreted it, or even ignored it altogether.

In the end, all that counts is safety and reducing accidents. Something tells me that's not your number one goal here.

i can tell you right now that this boat wont fully plane out till close to 30 mph but why don't we leave this investigation to the investigators? my thoughts and prayers are with the people involved