DeepWaterHappy Podcast Episode 2: WATER TAXI Hit and Run Crash April 27, 2025

Welcome to the DeepWaterHappy podcast; your go-to resource for everything boating! Whether you’re a seasoned sailor or just starting out, we dive into the thrilling world of boating with a focus on real incidents, expert safety tips, and the experiences that shape our love for the water.

Link to Podcast Episode #2 above!

Every episode, we break down real-life boating accidents, near-misses, and lessons learned — giving you the tools and knowledge to stay safe and have fun on the water. We’ll also bring in experienced boaters, safety experts, and accident survivors to share their stories, insights, and advice.

Why You’ll Love It:

• Engaging, Real Stories: Get the inside scoop on what happens when things go wrong on the water, and how to avoid those same mistakes.
• Safety First: Learn practical, easy-to-follow tips that can save your life and help you become a better, more confident boater.
• Community & Connection: Whether you’re just dreaming about getting your first boat or you’re a seasoned captain, this show creates a community where everyone can learn and grow together.

Whether you’re into sailing, cruising, fishing, or adventure on the open water; we promise you’ll walk away with valuable insights and a deeper appreciation for boating — all while having a blast. Tune in and let’s make sure your time on the water is both safe and unforgettable!”

---

This podcast mixes education, real-world scenarios, and a sense of community. While we will emphasize the importance of safety, we also will highlight how fun and exciting boating can be! If you are a listener who wants to learn from real stories, avoid potential dangers, and enjoy their boating experiences even more; these stories are for you. – Kim

If you have any comments, please post them below. What are your thoughts on avoiding collisions? What can we do as captains to make incidents less likely to happen, less severe, and boating safer?

CNN Report – updates since podcast publication can be found here.
Tampa Bay Times – photos of the powerboat that struck the ferry.
Bay News 9 – video of the actual crash

Podcast Transcript:

(00:03):

Good morning. We are looking at again at the Clearwater taxi crash from day before yesterday. And when I put together yesterday’s podcast, there was a lot of news that wasn’t out. And as you can imagine, more and more information is surfacing literally. It’s quite the complicated situation. And as always, I want to say that I am talking about this situation from the position of somebody who does operate charter boats. I do operate a boat similar to that, and I always, always realize there are two sides to every story. And in the eye of the law, especially maritime law, it’s not all that often that one person is 100% in the wrong. You do have a responsibility to change your course, change your speed, do something of that nature to avoid a collision. But there are also situations where there’s absolutely no way for you to avoid the collision.

(01:11)
And yesterday afternoon, the videos started surfacing from the webcams around that area and the videos are absolutely chilling. You can go to my blog@deepwaterhappy.com and click on the podcast link. And there you’ll see the show notes from yesterday’s episode in this episode showing you some of the photos, some of the information, and the links to the videos from the different news sources. The videos are unbelievable. The video shows the striking vessel running up onto the stern of the taxi boat. You can see the difference in speed. And I can tell you from operating one of these taxi boats that with 45 passengers, and this was the 40 foot version, which is a little bit smaller than the one that I run. I know that the one that I run, if I’ve got 45 people on it, it is weighted down. I am not going to be able to make any last minute turns.

(02:11)
And even if I did, how do you know which way to turn? You may expose an even more vulnerable section of your vessel to the oncoming traffic. And so I watch the video probably 20 times, maybe 30, looking at every single aspect in the video you’ll see there’s a bit of a flash at the front of the boat, and that could have been from a crew member using a torch to show crab traps. It could have been from somebody taking a picture. And then it seems like there’s another little bit of a flash later. The boat that is overtaking, it looks like they do have their running lights on. It also looks like the boat that was overtaking a 37 foot boat almost completely the water taxi, like it rides up more than three quarters of the way onto the water taxi. And I haven’t seen the video of it coming off.

(03:08)
I don’t know if it slid off or did they have to engage reverse engine to drag it back off. But what I do know is that the boat that hit them ended up three or four miles away at another boat ramp. They left the scene, there was a casualty on the water taxi. The name of that person has been released and is public knowledge. These people were at some type of a sand castle, I think a sand castle building event, something of that nature. And just the end of a absolutely beautiful day. So sad. But sticking to what we do know, that hit angle, looking at the angle of the hit and looking at the speed of the oncoming vessel and the speed of the water taxi, I don’t think the water taxi had time to react. Apparently one of the crew members said, Hey, hey, hey, before the strike, as they saw this boat approaching them from behind, and even if they had a second or two to turn because the other vessel was almost directly behind them, it would be almost impossible to guess if I turned to starboard, are they going to turn to port?

(04:36)
If I turn to port, are they going to turn to port? You might end up in an even worse situation. So the only good thing about this angle I think, was that perhaps the water taxis outboards, their engines were in the back and maybe somewhat protected the people on the boat. But it doesn’t look like very much protection was afforded by those engines as far as the boat that hit them.

(05:04)
I never liked to question pilots. They never liked to question captains. I want to hear both sides of the story. I want to hear was the oncoming vessel, were they not yet Planing was their bow way up. It didn’t look like it looked like they were planing, looked like they were moving along. I would have to say somewhere between 14 and 20 miles an hour. Hard to say exactly. I’m sure somebody can measure it by looking at the video and figure it out, but I don’t know exactly how fast the oncoming vessel was, but my thought was what if they had suffered a steering loss? They had lost their steering and that’s why they hit the boat. That theory would work except that they left the scene and ended up three or four miles away at another boat ramp. So I can’t with that theory.

(05:58)
The captain of the water taxi I read was Dennis Kemmerer, age 64. And of course one of the questions would be, did the water taxi have all of its correct lighting? Was the lighting was did it have its correct stern light? Was it the correct angle of the stern light? Correct brightness for that boat, correct height? All of those, and I know this from going through Coast Guard inspections ourselves, there is a vessel that I’ve worked with that had lights that were not correct. They were not high enough, they were not visible and had to be put on higher poles in order to pass Coast Guard inspection. And so that is a factor. It’s a picky little factor, but that is one of the factors. On the other hand, and I did, and also my husband of course was listening to all of this, my first mate Bill, and he was saying that FWP or Highway Patrol, I’m not sure which ones or sheriff’s department had said that the actions of the crew helped save lives, that the actions of the crew in dealing with the injuries.

(07:08)
And my husband and I did have a long conversation about this last night and we talked about that. We generally have got about four tourniquets with us and he says he thinks maybe we’ll start carrying more. And in the case of somebody bleeding out, you’ve only got three or four minutes, how many people can you service in the amount of time given in a catastrophe like this? I mean, this was multiple injuries rapidly, but as my husband would say, if you don’t have the equipment with you, it becomes more difficult to do this. You can always work side by side with someone else and say, now we’re going to do this. Now we’re going to do that and talk them through it. Getting training’s really good. He and I got our training through crisis Medicine, some of the best training out there, you can find them online.

(07:58)
The tactical casualty care is a really good, really place to learn a little bit more beyond just stop the bleed or Band-aids or any of the things that are available for free. I would go a little bit more in depth, but apparently actions of the crew were really, really helped ameliorate some of the damage to the passengers. On the other hand, the skipper of the other vessel, it looks like yesterday, rumors and little tidbits were coming up on social media. And by this morning, most of the acknowledged news sources have got a lot of information. They say Jeffrey Knight is a well-known businessman in the Tampa Bay area. This is from the Times now, says he serves as chairman of Knight Enterprises and owns Knight Global Entertainment, which operates popular venues like Janice Live. His company acquired by Mill Point Capital in 2020 generates around $34 million annually.

(09:01)
So we know more about who he is. The rumors that I started seeing yesterday were that he had been involved in another voting incident and then I see from 10 Tampa Bay, they had a list of a 2012 case a man died getting off of a boat. The case was later dismissed and there was something about whether or not there were appropriate railings on the vessel that would be worth looking deeper into. And then a careless operation of vessel citation in 2017, 2019, a boating accident 2019 charges later dismissed. I think that was also a careless operation. And so he has faced previous boating charges and they did say that they had tested him, I think with a breathalyzer the evening when they found him after this boat crash and the results were negative. But this is going to cast a shadow on the whole thing, is that he has, it looks like a history of other episodes on the water.

(10:16)
On a personal level, there was a video of him looking across the boat with officials and I found it disturbing that he was with the boat. I feel like the appropriate thing would’ve been upon striking another vessel. And like I said, I don’t know wasn’t there, but upon striking another vessel, if your crew was not needing I immediate medical attention, then perhaps aid is your choice. Oops, cut several screens up because I’m looking at multiple sources at the same time to make sure I’m giving accurate information. But I would say rendering assistance would go a long way in this case, hop off your boat and hop onto the other boat. I imagine it was a chaotic scene if at all possible aid. And I also listened and read that the law enforcement officials are reviewing 9 1 1 calls from that evening to see if anybody on the striking vessel did make any 9 1 1 calls. And I also wonder, did they try and assist?

(11:33)
I did see some questions online where people were asking how could they prove that this was the boat that struck the other boat? And that would be just like in a car crash. If you have fiber and materials, and I’m speaking completely from a layman’s position, but I did see that they had a forensic scientist on the vessel right away. And if there are paint and splinters from each boat on the other boat, then that’s going to be pretty solid evidence right there. It’s not like a stray hair or a stray piece of lint. This would be actual bits of fiberglass, bits of metal, bits of paint. And if they are from one boat and onto the other, then that’s going to definitely look like those two vessels met. And that’s where things are at this point. There are so many angles to this. There is so much information out there that’s available.

(12:32)
I would have to say that on the water, I’m actually kind of relieved that there are webcams that were able to capture what happened. My heart goes out to the families involved. This had to be absolutely terrifying for them. I worry that it will affect them, that the repercussions will be long-term, that not only will they have injuries and the death of one of the passengers on the vessel, but the mental aspect of everything that happened. Will these people go on to raise children and they’ll be reluctant to take them on the water because of this horrific accident. And just that whole domino effect. What will happen to the captain from the water taxi? What will happen to that company? What will happen to all these people? Just so, so many angles, so many people who are going to be affected in so many ways.

(13:29)
All the people who had to look over the evidence, people who had to help rescue the emergency technicians that were there on the scene. Everybody is affected and that effect goes on for years. This is going to be an interesting one to see what happens from here with this case. If you see any more information, please leave it in the comments below or look at the show notes@deepwaterhappy.com under podcast and contribute. What new information do you find? What are you hearing out there? What are you seeing? What are your thoughts? What angles to this story have I missed? What have I not thought of? I am as always reviewing all of the information and trying to decide how can I put this into practice for myself? How can I learn from this? How can I make what I’m doing even more safe on the water?

(14:29)
And like I said, my husband says we’ll be carrying more tourniquets than we used to. We’ll have more wound packing with this than we have in the past. And just a general overview, he and I do practice monthly with man ever board drills. We practice with fire drills. I think we now will probably add some type of a critical situation, drill where we have to think about and what would we say on the radio? I’ll have a script. It will be like the other scripts just slightly adjusted. What if we have an emergency on board, a health emergency? Because I’ve seen that happen on boats and had to think that through. What if we have a catastrophic emergency like this? And I’m always, as I’m operating a vessel the whole time I’m looking for all the traffic out there. I’m looking for all the boats that are acting erratically. I’m looking for vessels that seem like they’re operating faster than they should in an area where they shouldn’t be operating at that speed. You’re always on the lookout. It’s a 360 degree watch all the time. And this water taxi had a captain and two crew I read.

(15:43)
But what can you do when someone is headed right at you? But what I can do is spread information about how to make yourself safer, how to ameliorate damage, how to try to avoid situations like this. I have always said that Sunday from noon till dusk, two to four I think is the highest incident of accidents on the water. But Sunday afternoons is also high accident rate. We know that there are more accidents happening in those hours and those are the times to operate with an even better lookout. It is your responsibility to keep a lookout. In this case. I don’t even see how a lookout could have helped, but there will be more information, I’m sure. So leave your comments below. What have I not considered? What more angles to this are there? What more information needs to be considered and where is this going to go from here? Thanks for listening and I’ll talk to you in the next one. Bye.