By: BoatBlurb Staff
There are bad days at the boat ramp, but sometimes things go just as squirrely once you're on the lake.
People gawk when boats sink. Can you blame them? It's hard to turn a blind eye when they go down under unusual, and sometimes amusing, circumstances (unless you're the owner).
For YouTuber David 'Heavy D' Sparks and his fellow collaborator David 'Diesel Dave' Kiley, also known as The Diesel Brothers, sinking a $400k Pavati wake boat definitely drew some attention, but it wasn't quite the big deal you might expect. At least not for those guys.
On Sparks' YouTube channel, he and his friends run a fix-it shop for all types of vehicles - cars, trucks, boats, heavy machinery, off-road vehicles - basically anything with a motor. In other words, they have the machinery and the means to fix and recover almost anything.
And if they don't, they acquire it.
Sparks sunk his brand new Pavati AL24 wake boat on Lake Powell in Utah. According to the YouTuber, he was enjoying a day with his wife and kids when they discovered that sometime during their adventure the plug had been pulled. Given that the ballast tanks were also full, the boat invariably couldn't handle the increased weight and went down. Thankfully Sparks and his family were rescued by the Forest Service, presumably after sending out a radio call. The luxury wakeboat has every bell and whistle imaginable, with an appropriately staggering price tag to match. Sadly, the black beauty dropped into the abyss 95 feet below. That's deep.
Despite the setback, it's also the perfect setup for a YouTube channel that prides itself on fixing exotic machinery, It also helps to have friends like Adventures With Purpose, another YouTube channel devoted to underwater rescue/recovery who have helped solve 22 cold case crimes using their unique skillset.
So how do you get a 5000 lb wake boat (with another 5000 lbs of full ballast) off the bottom of Lake Powell?
Sparks and his friends used a SURC, which stands for Small Unit Riverine Craft. It's used by the US Marine NECC (Navy Expeditionary Combat Command) and US Navy Riverine Squad. It's a 12m (39 foot) twin diesel jet boat that is essentially the newer iteration of the patrol boats used in Vietnam. They are rigid hull armoured patrol boats used to maintain control of inland waterways and rivers. Or, in this case, to help some YouTubers raise a wakeboat.
Check out the awesome video to see how they used a Navy ship to raise a one-of-a-kind wakeboat from the depths:
