http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2016/09/25/marlins-jose-fernandez-killed-in-miami-boating-accident/ Mother Ocean can be very unforgiving.
Especially when you drive your boat at night, too fast and aren't familiar with the waters around you. Running into an unmarked jetty is easy to do at night. Sad. D Image Unavailable, Please Login
It's Government Cut in Miami. I'm there all the time and it's where the cruise ships and freighters come in and out. I'm sure it was just an error but at 03:15AM if you're not watching your screens I guess you could cut the corner and hit the jetty. Still, it's a big inlet and would be very very marked on your chart plotter and with buoys. The early dock chatter is that drugs or alcohol were not involved and the captain knew the area. May have been running with his LED interior on which trashes your night vision. Really sad, by all accounts he was a good guy.
Never done Miami. But have done a little bit of running at night (fishing too good to quit). Keep depth finder/GPS running. Stay in the middle of the channel. Have a spotter on either side watching for the channel markets. Know the difference between red and green, red right returning. Even then, fairly stressful. Always good to make the dock and have a beer. Sad. I'm guessing they must have been inexperienced. They probably didn't even know what hit them.
I hate running at night and there's reason why so many of the captains slow down to 10kts if they are on the ocean at night. The facts will come clear here I'm sure but just that they were running at very high speed in the middle of the night isn't good. Who knows what happened here but most don't come close to doing what you describe in para 1.
