Ouch.

Ulrik Pedersen
= Kirlu
= Member on forum? Am I right..?

I've been on the beach and watched that glass bottom boat fly out from the shore in reverse , not having much of a look at all , kids everywhere etc...

Was bound to happen sooner or later.......I'd put it own to ignorance.

and why does he even need a float? The snorkelers don't need / use them?

5 knots is not fast, so you gotta wonder how if he was going that speed he did not see someone so close to shore!

If I understand correctly, OSH have no mandate below the high water mark. He must file with MNZ and they will investigate.

I am absolutely for throwing that b****rd in the water and letting Kirlu run him over as many times as he likes... (If he doesn't want to I'm sure someone else would be happy to...)

I read the article this afternoon and thought it a bit odd. Surely, if you're that close to shore/ known dive spot, you'd be looking for people regardless. I hope they throw the book at the skipper.

lets all be helpful and write to him via his website and ask him to remove the sentence stating that he has "been operating safely for over 13 years." We could even recommend ways he could update it such as "I had been operating kind of safely for 13 years, until I recklessly hit a young man off leigh"

The issue at the outty is that, extreme high tide aside, there are two blind corners that he rounds when bringing his boat back to it's mooring in the evening. There is no way, as he rounds them, that either he can see you or you can see him until he is, in this case literally, on top of you. So you can have a mickey mouse spearo flag, no flag, a square metre flag-it don't matter because by the time he sees it, it's too late. The issue is not so much his speed (though I doubt he was doing 5 knots-never does when I see him) but that in cruising so close to the rocks he impedes both his and your ability to avoid a collision. It's so basic a safety consideration, to not round blind corners at pace, that in all the dozens and dozens of times I've dived there, I've never had an issue with a vessel, either commercial or recreational....except his....twice. He knows we're there- he's copped a serve from me, yet he's continued doing it until the inevitable has happened. The guy's a ****wit.

I wonder what a stick of jelly and a length of det cord would look like on the bottom of that boat.....