Eagle Lake Incident

Just got back from Temple Bay Lodge on Eagle Lake, Ontario where the fishing was good but there was a black cloud hanging over the lodge last week. They had a customer from Chicago die the week before in a boating accident. The third hand story I got was that the man was fishing with his wife and daughter and was traveling wide open down the lake with a 40 horse tiller motor on a 17′ boat. His hat blew off and he instinctively reached up with his driving hand to catch it. The motor instantly turned to the side and threw them all out of the boat. The man must have hit his head on the boat because he was unconscious in the water, so his daughter swam over to hold him up. In the meantime the boat was going in high speed circles and hit the daughter causing her to lose her grip on her dad and gave her a gash on the head. A local guide saw what happened and came over to help but he first had to ram the runaway boat to sink it before he could safely do anything. He recovered the two women but the man was not found for a couple of days. As a result, we could not leave the dock without our life jackets on and the tether kill switch cord wrapped around our arms. In retrospect, that was not a bad idea. Be careful out there folks.

My thoughts are with the family this happened to.

There has been four similar accidents in the Lake of the Woods area pertaining to tiller operated boats. Caution should always be taken when driving a boat ecspecially at full throttle.

Josh

My sympathies to the family.

I thought tiller throttles were like motorcycle throttles and snapped back when you took your hand off?

They are if left alone, they do snap back Gianni, but they also have a tension screw on the underside that you can adjust so the throttle stays open. It’s nice for long runs so your wrist and arm don’t get so fatigued, but I’ll be the first to admit that it wouldn’t be the safest thing in the world if you went out of the boat. Bottom line is, wear the tether cord when you’re running. I know there are way too many of us, including me, that don’t use it regularly. I’m going to try to remember mine more in the future.

There is also a tension screw that can be adjusted to keep the motor from turning left or right.
When I ran tillers, it was always tightend enough so that if my hand did come off the handle, it remain right where it was.
This can get to be a little more work on long runs, but well worth it in case something like this ever happened.
The kill switch is still the best option.
JWB