Jet Boat Racing

This series was shot last summer at Riggins, Idaho. This is an exciting event that happens once a year in this bump-in-the-road town along the Salmon River. The boats race downriver about 8 miles, turn around, and race back upriver. They do this about 3 times each day and the fastest time wins. Speeds upwards of 80 mph are reached on the flat water and exciting wave jumps occur in the rapids. As you'll see, the spectators are right along the shore and the boats get pretty close. You can see more photos of this event Here.

Here they come

After splashdown there appears to be a problem. The pilot appears to be having some trouble steering the boat.

The strong current pushes the boat toward shore as well. I'm standing on rocky rip-rap about 20 ft from the rock just visible at the lower left. If the pilot can't get the boat turned.... Amazingly, there is a guy crouched down just behind the rock at the lower left, oblivious to what is about to happen.

A second later I know this boat is not going to stop. My good angel is yelling "Get out of the way!" and my bad angel is yelling "You wuss! Hold your ground and keep shooting!" These boats use high performance fuels. Highly explosive. And this guy is gunning it trying to get back into open water. I envision the boat flying up over the rock; it's aimed right at where I'm standing. Any sort of explosion makes running a non-event. I keep shooting.

Okay, I'm a wuss. The boat hits the rock and I duck, turning away and taking about a 1/2 step. Out of the corner of my eye I see the boat come up over the rock and turn back, nose into the river. No flying squasher of puny human or small nuclear explosion. I turn back and get set to keep shooting. I missed it. I look around quickly and amazingly the guy that was behind the rock has somehow made it halfway up the rocky rip-rap, about 30 feet. His buddies think it's a hoot and are laughing their asses off.

So, here are these guys strapped into an aluminum boat, nosed into an oncoming rush of water that spills over the bow of the boat and into the cockpit. The boat starts to sink very quickly. There's about 100 people on the shore and most of them are yelling and screaming at the racers to get out. Duh. Some guys are running down the rip-rap to help. I saw this happen earlier just on the upstream side of this spot when another boat ran aground. Guys running, slipping on the wet rocks, cracking their skulls, elbows, arms, falling between large boulders, generally putting themselves at serious risk of injury. I imagined in this case seeing 3 or 4 guys pitch into the river in their enthusiasm or hear the crack of a broken skull, but despite the pandemonium some folks were able to get to the boat.

I stopped shooting for a few seconds, debating if I should lend a hand since I was so close. I also didn't want to photograph these guys going under if they didn't get out in time. I decided that I wouldn't be much help since I don't have any experience rescuing guys in sinking boats. The boat filled up very rapidly. The first guy got out with assistance from shore (you can see his red helmet just left of center above the guy in blue jeans) and the second guy was actually climbing the boat as it tipped over into the river and got a good grip on a human chain of rescuers.

The second guy is still not really on shore. He's standing on the side of the boat as it's going down, half on the rock, but his only safety line is gripping the human chain. With a last sort of leap, he clears the boat and is pulled onto the rocks as the boat goes under. It just goes down and disappears as soon as it passes under the surface. I mean, I can't see it. The current takes it and there's no sign right there or even just downriver that there's a 15 ft bright yellow jet boat anywhere in the vicinity. Lots of clapping and cheering. I think it took them 2 weeks to locate the boat and haul it out of the river.

All this happened in less than 2 minutes.