Monday, September 30, 2013

Florida Fishermen Boat Through Waterspout, Vow To Never Do It Again (VIDEO)


This goes without saying, but we have to address it anyway: driving a boat through the middle of a waterspout is generally a bad idea.



Yet that didn't stop Kevin Johnsen, a fisherman specializing in tours of the Florida Keys, when he and Aaron Osters, a fellow fisher, ventured close to a group of waterspouts last week.



A video uploaded to YouTube captured the scene as the two men and a dog boated in and around a storm system 6 miles off the Florida coast. They spend some time underneath a forming funnel, then actually point the boat through a spinning cloud that's already touched down.



"We're going to batten down the hatches, put on the waterproof housing and then we're going inside," Johnsen explains to the camera (at about 7:10). "My girlfriend is going to kill me," he adds, as they steer through just over 8 minutes into the video.



Johnsen estimates the spout was an F0, meaning it had wind speeds under 72 miles per hour, though it was strong enough, he says, "to completely open my deck hatches and forcibly move the boat more than I expected."



"All right, we won't do that again!" he tells the camera.



Johnsen's actions are the exact opposite of what one should do with a waterspout. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tells all boaters to "take waterspouts seriously" and "be prepared to quickly seek safe harbor."



Watch the full video, below:

No comments:

Post a Comment