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Subject 21's Experience

Peter W. - Powerboater

Peter started boating when he was eight years old on Lake Simcoe in Ontario. His first boat was a 12-foot cedar strip with a 5-horsepower motor before moving on to an 18-foot fiberglass boat with 100 horsepower. He then got involved in organized racing and started racing boats. He presently has two boats, a 21-foot bowrider and a 19-foot gold fast tunnel boat with a 200-horse outboard on it… because he likes to go fast!

Watch Peter W. go through the experiences below.

Pre-Interview
Fishing Boat
Cold Water Tank
Warm Water Tank
Post-Interview

Peter always wears a lifejacket when he’s doing any type of water sport like tubing or water skiing and also whenever he’s driving his fast boat, and so do his passengers. In his Bowrider boat, lifejackets are out and visible and he always asks his passengers if they want to wear one before they set off.

Peter has had two experiences where he was thrown into the water unexpectedly and in both cases, he was racing a boat in organized boat racing. The first time he was in last place and going over a lot of waves and going too fast in rough water. The boat went up in the air, turned and threw him out.

The second time he was in a tunnel boat going pretty fast, going into a corner, and the boat had turned violently and then rolled and threw him out of the boat because back then they were not strapped in.

Fortunately, both times he had a helmet and racing lifejacket on, so he was fine.

“It's amazing how quickly you go from you’re on your feet to you’re out of control and you're getting wet.”

After going through the Virtual Reality (VR) experiences, Peter had this to say about the unexpected falls, “It's quick and it happens very fast. You don't expect something to happen that quickly, and when you do fall, you're not expecting it. It's amazing how quickly you go from you’re on your feet to you’re out of control and you're getting wet.”

Peter found the dunk tanks were a great representation of being shocked, “The tank experience is quick. You're sitting and then you're underwater very, very quickly. Am I right side up? Is my head going to pop up out of the water or am I upside down or sideways? It happens very quickly.”

“Falling into the water unexpectedly puts you into a panic mode and you would gasp because you're not expecting it.”

He could easily see how panic would set in, especially if the water was cold, and could easily see how the first non-voluntary instinct would be to gasp. “Falling into the water unexpectedly puts you into a panic mode and you would gasp because you're not expecting it. You weren't planning on it. And it happens very quickly. I could easily see how you would gasp when you hit that water.”

Peter feels very strongly that, “If you are unexpectedly thrown out of or fall out of a boat, your chances of staying above water and keeping your face out of the water, are so much greater if you have a lifejacket on.”