While we were busy photographing the Offshore Super Series Races at Orange Beach, Alabama our home waters of Destin played host to the annual Emerald Coast Poker Run. Part of the festivities (although not an official part of the poker run itself), is live action filming of the go-fast boats from a helicopter. This year, boats made their photo passes in the south end of Destin Pass which is subject to confused seas just about anytime. Unfortunately, one of the boats lost control during their run – leading to a dramatic accident and serious injuries for some of the riders. Fortunately, no one was killed.
To their credit, the crew has released the helicopter video of the accident as a graphic illustration of the dangers of loosing control at high speed on the water. To help provide context to the video and accident location, scroll down below the video to see our Google Map.
Approximate Boat Path and Accident Location
For better viewing, use the ‘View in Google Earth’ button to load it into 3D Google Earth and then load our EarthNC Online Destin Area marine chart as an additional overlay.
[...] The accident victims were gracious enough to release the video of the accident to help promote boating safety. As the video shows, the boat was driving mostly south at high speed into the mouth of Destin Pass were it ‘hooked’ after landing from a big wave jump. Destin Pass, like most passes, is subject to unpredictable wave patterns due to tide/wind conflicts, shallowing water, and busy boating traffic by vessels of all sizes. To help provide context to the video, our sister website EarthNC.com – Marine Charts for Google Earth put together the simple map below with the approximate boating path. They’ve also posted a link to their online Google Earth marine chart for Destin Pass here. [...]