Boat Crash Damages Dam, Peoria, Ill...

[Ratickle]

Can't wait to hear more about this one. And maybe some pics???

TAZEWELL COUNTY - Two Peoria men are awaiting formal charges after being arrested for a crash on the Illinois River.

The crash happened a little before 9:00 a.m. Saturday at the Peoria Lock & Dam near Creve Coeur.

William Lilenthal and Chad Robson are accused of taking a 66' houseboat from the East Port Marina without the owner's permission.

Police say the boat crashed into the dam and went over the spillway into the water below. The men were not hurt, but the dam and boat were damaged.

The Illinois Conservation Police arrested Lilenthal for reckless operation of a watercraft and theft of more than $300.

Robson was arrested for operation of a watercraft while legally drunk and theft of more than $300.

Police say Lilenthal was driving at the time of the crash, but Robson was driving before the crash.

They're expected to appear before a judge Monday.

 

[Pete B]

this story is useless without pictures!

 

[Bobcat]

I got peeps up there....I'm on it.

 

[Bobcat]

Got a little bit. It's a 1966 boat, not a 66' boat. The owner was a dipsh*t named John Echolls (sp?) I almost ran him and ten other people over on the river one night in 92 or 93 (houseboat, no lights , right in the channel...I saw a cigarette glow and chopped the throttles in the nick of time)

They were heading North out of Eastpoint Marina in East Peoria.

http://www.cinewsnow.com/news/local/Peoria-dam-damaged-in-stolen-boat-wreck-146614375.html

 

[fund razor]

Good version with perp pics and more story. A dam way to wreck a houseboat - Pekin, IL - Pekin Daily Times
PEKIN, Ill. — Somewhere up ahead was a dam and its 4-foot waterfall, but Chad Robson had to go to the bathroom.

He actually didn’t bother with the accommodation that’s called “the head” on watercraft. Robson instead walked to the stern of the 65-foot houseboat that calmly sailed down the Illinois River at Creve Coeur as 9 a.m. approached Saturday.

Robson, 30, left the controls in the hands of William Lilenthal, 23, his first mate of sorts on the cruise they began when they allegedly stole the boat owned by John Eakle, former harbormaster of EastPort Marina.

To Eakle, the boat truly was a house where in warm months he often resided as a semi-permanent resident of the marina in East Peoria.

“That’s his baby,” Creve Coeur Police Chief Pete Fisher said Monday. “I’ve been on it many times.”

Now in charge of the craft, Lilenthal was at two disadvantages. He, like Robson, allegedly was intoxicated, and he had no idea how to steer a houseboat.

Lilenthal “said he knew there was a dam ahead,” Fisher said. “But he couldn’t see it until it was too late. He said the next thing he knew, they were going over.”

Robson and Lilenthal, both of Peoria, were lucky the large boat went prow-first over the wickets at the Peoria Lock and Dam off Creve Coeur’s banks, said Mike Johnson, chief of the Fondulac Park District Police Department, which supervises river rescue and recovery operations in the area.

“If the boat had gone over sideways we’d probably have done a recovery” search for drowning victims, he said.

Eakle’s boat, however, may not survive.

Fisher said Lilenthal and Robson managed to hang on as the craft spilled over the dam and, despite a gaping hole in its hull, “managed to get it over to the far south end of the lock,” where a worker there tied it off.

“They put a bilge pump with a 2 1/2-inch hose in (to pump water out), and it was still sinking,” he said.

With the pump at full throttle, a tugboat managed to tow the boat back north to Detweiller Marina in Peoria, Johnson said. There a U.S. Coast Guard “safe boat” — small but high in horsepower — tied onto the houseboat and drove it hard toward shore to beach it. “They did a great job,” Johnson said.

The houseboat sustained about $20,000 in damages, he said. The lock and dam was not harmed by the collision, according to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

 

[rschap1]

insane

it took until 9am to get that loaded...

 

[Ratickle]

this story is useless without pictures!

You'd think if a 65 foot houseboat went over a dam they'd at least have a couple pics of the boat somewhere.....:banghead:

 

[Bobcat]

I got pics of the boat as it sits now, and of the dam it hit. Here is the dam and a small story.

Peoria lock and dam in working order after collision

By WEEK Producer
April 10, 2012 Updated Apr 10, 2012 at 9:21 PM CDT

Officials at the Army Corps of Engineers said the Peoria lock and dam is up and working properly, after a 26-foot stolen houseboat hit the wickets next to the lock last weekend.

Corps officials say there may be damage underwater where it can't be seen.

 

[Bobcat]

Sitting at Detweiller Marina. Damage must be under the waterline.