Desert Storm Poker Run Lake Havasu
Desert Storm Poker Run Lake Havasu 2017
Desert Storm Poker Run Lake Havasu City

Apr 19, 2018 Lake Havasu City, AZ. Hundreds meandered along McCulloch Boulevard Thursday to admire boats registered in the 2018 Desert Storm Poker Run. High-powered boats sloshed into the docks at Pirate Cove Resort in Needles, California on Tuesday, marking the unofficial start to the 18th Annual Desert Storm Poker Run and Shootout.

HomePowerboating NewsDesert Storm Crash: It’s Not The Boats Fault

The outcomes from the Desert Storm Poker Run at Lake Havasu highlight and brought home hard what can go wrong on the water. We have now seen the video of the DCB M35 going over during the actual event too many times.

Safety? What does this really mean, we read about and hear people talk about it. Safety for the most part seems to be people talking about life jackets, kill switches, and having rescue divers at recreational boating events. Aka “Poker Runs”

In every instance of a boat crash that I have witnesses or reviewed the boat was never the problem. Now you can say it was a mechanical failure, the drive, the steering, the tunnel tab stuck, the hull came apart. Well in every instance of this occurrence the human was responsible for the design, engineering, replacement part, repair, or modification to the part and is really where the responsibility rests. The failure of the human to properly maintain and manage what they are riding is where the failure occurred.

Professionally safety protocols are broken down into two principals; prevention and response. Boating safety and event safely plans are primarily based upon antiquated response plans rather than prevention plans. You carry or wear life jackets, in case you get thrown into the water. You have fire extinguishers in case you have a fire. Well what about preventing yourself from being thrown into the water or prevent the fire from staring in the first place.

Prevention of the BOAT CRASH! In most cases the boat seems to get into trouble all by itself, rarely is it a collision or allision, typically the boat is being run with either too much positive or too much negative trim for the speed and conditions and will either trip and stuff or be turned with too much transom lift and swap ends which typically ejects all the occupants. This scenario happens all too often and it occurs in many different segments not just high performance boating; center consoles, tow boats, small runabouts; it seems the HP segment just gets a little bit more attention when it happens and the boat manufactures get a undeserved black eye. Sometimes it appears or is in fact true that a particular boat has a higher frequency of incident and the boat gets a bad reputation because of it. In one case a particular boat hull was impossible to insure because of its reputation and in reality the boat was not at fault the drivers were.

Desert Storm Poker Run Lake Havasu

It is true that some hulls are less forgiving than others, this doesn’t mean the boat is bad it just means it requires educated and trained skill set to drive rather than the narcissist attitudes that believe if they can drive a Lamborghini they can handle a performance boat. Reality! Some hulls are very forgiving and will let the operator get away with stupid moves again and again and others are not and won’t let you miss at all, but it’s still your fault, not the boats fault. You can go to sea in a ship that should be condemned and a well trained, motivated, and incentivized crew will make the crossing and fulfill the mission, conversely you can have the best ship in the world with the most sophisticated equipment on board and the failure of the human will run it on the rocks and kill souls aboard.

The interesting and sad thing that happens when all goes bad is the lawyers, the surveyors, the insurance adjustors, and the public pontificators all assemble and begin the process of finger pointing and discovery to see who has the deepest pockets. The innocent and clearly non responsible parties usually have to pay dearly to defend themselves and pay to prove their innocence because they are not and were never responsible.

Insurance companies accept years of ownership to mitigate risk and allow this to be a measure of skill. RIDICULOUSNESS! Demonstrated Human Performance is the only thing that can help us if we move forward out of this mess. Knowledge without skill is only words on paper and performance without understanding fundamental knowledge is a precarious perch to which the human will eventually fall from.

Don’t blame the boat, Don’t blame the conditions, Don’t blame anything other than the human that was in control and the other humans that enabled them to be there. I am so very thankful for those who have lived and remain saddened by those who have not. I have lifted the body bags, I have towed the upside down boats, I have removed the drain plugs and stepped through the bloody water from the dead body in the cockpit, I have been the impromptu preacher at the poker run celebration asking for a few minutes of silence to remember those that died today. I have listened and supported to great friends who no longer boat because they have been so negatively affected by the mess of this all. In all of those cases I got to the person and to the scene too late to help. The prevention planned failed and I am tired of FAILURE and I am furious at those who silently and cowardly inhibit our efforts to bring a professionally based safety solutions.

Brad Schoenwald

COMMENTS

My wife likes to tell me about a bi-weekly “assignment” that the executives where she works have to produce for the company’s CEO in which they describe their “top five” things going on with their business unit. She doesn’t enjoy spending the time to do them, but she admits that they’re rather helpful.

Desert Storm Poker Run Lake Havasu 2017

With the incredible Spooled Up 52-foot MTI cat in the background, the new DCB M33R cat heads out on another demo ride during the Desert Storm Poker Run. Photo by Jason Johnson

Taking a cue from my significant other, I decided to come up with my “top five,” with a focus on the cool stuff that happened yesterday from the Desert Storm Poker Run in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., that I’m likely never going to forget. So, in chronological order, here goes.

DCB's M33R got tons of attention going through the Lake Havasu Channel on Friday. Photo by Jason Johnson

DCB M33R First Impression
After visiting with several people, including Bob Teague of Teague Custom Marine, Randy and Cherell Scism of MTI, Summer Richardson of Swoop Motorsports and more, on the docks at the London Bridge Resort before the start of the poker run, I hopped in the co-pilot seat of the first DCB Performance Boats M33R catamaran with one of the company’s principals, Paul Miller, who was accompanied by two lovely DCB employees, Nicole and Taryn.

Since speedonthewater.com has covered the M33R since it was a new design, it was exciting to be able to get a “real world” feel for how the brand new 33-foot cat powered by twin Mercury Racing Verado 400R engines performed with a ton of boats on the lake. It also was nice to see the spectators’ reactions as Miller idled the beautiful M33R through the channel during the parade lap before we headed out on the lake. Of course the boat turned a lot of heads and received lots of thumbs up and “cat” calls. By the time we were done with the first part of the run and back at the London Bridge docks, which were flawlessly extended for the event thanks to Todd Taylor of Jokers Wild Productions, I was ready to give the boat two big thumbs up.

Everyone I talked with who had either driven the 33-footer or taken a demo ride raved about it. After getting a chance to feel the boat run over boat wakes, wind chop and more on the lake at speeds between 60 and 100-plus mph, I could see why. DCB really knocked it out of the park with the M33R, and the order list is already starting to grow because of it.

Spooled Up II was flying around Lake Havasu during the poker run. Photo by Jeff Helmkamp/Helmkamp Photos

Spooled Up Times Two
While heading to the first card stop, we got a glimpse of the Spooled Up and Spooled Up II catamarans owned by Craig and Kim Hargreaves on the return leg of the run. Seeing the 52-foot MTI and the 44-foot DC

Desert Storm Poker Run Havasu