3mo ago

Speedboat that flipped midair in 200 mph crash wins race on Arizona lake

apnews.com

45 comments

Admittedly, I don't know much about modern speedboats, but the full flip probably saved their lives. In the old days, flipping onto your head at damn near 200 mph was certain death.
- Yea that flip and rotation definitely saved them, you can see in the video they slow down drastically in the air while the top of the boat was pointing mostly forward, although they likely also experienced some drastic gforce changes as it happened.
- Yeah, I was gonna say, did the pilot live?
  Good number of hydroplane/powerboat deaths/maimings over the years...
  
  Both lived and were not seriously injured.
200 mph (322kph)
Everything but metric.
- Am I missing something here? KPH is metric.
  
  "kph" is an americanization. the unit is km/h. i'm assuming the commenter did not know this since the first abbreviation is not used it most languages.
  
  Maybe this is an SI purist and want to see meters per second or nothing? That would be silly because KPH is well used across the metric world, of course
  
  Americans hate metric so much that they'd rather use metric!
- kph is just a stupid way of saying km/h
- And a 'significant figures' failure too.
Eh, anyone can do that mid-air. It takes skill to do it quarter-air.
/s
What's a crash win?
I guess these guys have never heard of ground effect or air compressing at high speed.
I'm guessing none of them want to admit to these effects if you want to keep a propeller in the water the whole time.
- Those effects are key to the design of these boats. They're essentially a wing.
  Water has a lot more drag than air, so the more the boat is out of the water, the faster it can go.
  
  Though it makes me wonder why they don't use actual wings to maintain control over the boat when it goes too far out of the water. Why isn't the ideal basically a plane that has a propeller sticking down into the water?
Reminds me of the flying Mercedes CLR:
https://youtu.be/a9vD0R1fvZw
- There were two seoarate incidents. Mark Webber and another guy.
Is this the speedboat equivalent of doing a wheelie across the finish line on a bike?
Glad they’re ok.
In all seriousness, I think that there might be a good argument, in 2025, for converting races, be they car or boat or whatnot, to be remotely-driven.
We've got the technology today.
It'd permit for higher speeds and suchlike, and eliminate some requirements.
The audience doesn't get the drama of the driver maybe being killed in an accident, but by-and-large, blood sport has faded into history.
There are clearly some people who watch racing for the crashes --- but it's possible to have the crashes and have vehicles potentially destroyed without the drivers being killed too.
- That defeats the whole point.
  
  Well, I suppose it depends on what people are out for. Like I said, if it's death that they're interested in, then, yeah, it would. But if they're okay with the crashes without the death, then I'd think that it'd be okay.
- Hahahah no. Humans haven't changed. We still love to gawk at death and pain. We just don't want to admit it directly.
  Rubber-neckers slowing down the highway for a crash on the other side aren't doing it to make sure they are safe. They are hoping to spot some gore.
  
  Unless you like TOOL.
  "I want to watch things die from a good safe distance. Vicariously, I live while the whole world dies."
- If theres no risk of complete assholes burning up or crumpling into a pancake during a car race then the race sucks ass.
Sadly, they didn't win the Darwin award. There's always next year.
- Were these terrible people or are you just wishing death on random people for making a poor choice for their own safety?
  
  Not terrible people. At least the owner / one of the operators is a pretty awesome man.
  
  They were being reckless... to win the award, that's all it takes. Evolution takes its course.

45 comments