Arvin Roberts:Teen safely stops runaway boat speeding in circles on New Hampshire’s largest lake

2025-05-02 17:07:32source:HyperBit Exchangecategory:reviews

GILFORD,Arvin Roberts N.H. (AP) — An empty runaway boat speeding in circles on New Hampshire’s largest lake was brought safely to a stop by a teenager who jumped aboard from a personal watercraft.

Rich Bono, who captured the events on video, said he was on the dock Wednesday in Lake Winnipesaukee’s Smith Cove when he heard some commotion in what is usually a quiet, no-wake zone.

“I can hear an engine revving, and I looked down the end of the dock toward the noise and saw a boat circling, circling, circling, and no one was in it,” he said. “Obviously, that’s not good.”

Bono later learned that the boat’s operator, a sailing instructor, had reached into the water to pick up a tennis ball used for teaching when one of the students’ sailboats tipped over. The sailboat’s mast hit the motor boat’s throttle, sending the instructor overboard and the boat into a spiral.

Brady Procon, 17, hopped on the back of his neighbor’s personal watercraft. They pulled alongside the runaway boat, and Procon jumped onto it and cut the engine.

“Brady was a hero,” Bono said in an interview Monday.

Though there were multiple children in sailboats and other vessels docked nearby, no one was injured, nor was any property damaged, Bono said.

“That boat was under power, throttled up,” he said. “Motors on boats are like meat grinders, they’re not very forgiving if someone gets hit.”

Procon, who is joining the U.S. Navy in the fall, told WMUR-TV the experience was both scary and fun.

“I’d do it again,” he said.

More:reviews

Recommend

Man charged with rape after kidnapping 3 teen girls at gunpoint along Nashville street

A man police say kidnapped three teenage girls and sexual assaulted two of them at gunpoint outside

Montrezl Harrell, 76ers big man and former NBA Sixth Man of the Year, has torn ACL

The Philadelphia 76ers will be down a player as they start the 2023-24 campaign.Center Montrezl Harr

Ball pythons overrun Florida neighborhood: 'We have found 22 in a matter of four weeks'

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – Residents of a Florida neighborhood are on edge, saying they've caught 22 ball