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Man charged with DUI after towing boat, trailer upside down

 

This was the scene on Whites Neck Road near Holts Landing State Park after police stopped a man who they say kept driving after his boat and trailer flipped over.

This was the scene on Whites Neck Road near Holts Landing State Park after police stopped a man who they say kept driving after his boat and trailer flipped over. / DELAWARE FISH & WILDLIFE ENFORCEMENT

A Pennsylvania man was charged with drunken driving after he hit a parked car with his trailered pontoon boat and then flipped the trailer and boat as he sped from police while dragging the upside down boat and trailer along the road near Millville.

Eric A. Willis, 40, of Avondale, was charged Sunday with DUI, reckless driving, resisting arrest and resisting arrest with violence, disregarding a police officer's signal, leaving the scene of a property accident, driving at an unreasonable speed, driving on the wrong side of the highway and two counts of failure to signal intention, said state Fish & Wildlife Enforcement Sgt. Gregory Rhodes.

“When you get people who behave in an unreasonable way, that puts our officers and the public at risk,” Rhodes said. “Obviously, dragging a boat upside down on the roadway is a safety issue.”

The incident unfolded about 6 p.m. Sunday when police responded to the Holts Landing State Park boat ramp for a domestic argument as Willis was removing his pontoon boat from the water. When a Fish & Wildlife officer arrived in a patrol boat, Willis saw him and took off in his Chevrolet Trailblazer, towing the pontoon boat. The officer notified other officers to pick him up.

Willis, meanwhile, sped along Whites Neck Road, hit the truck and left the accident scene.

He then turned onto Old Mill Road without signaling and overturned the boat trailer, but continued driving recklessly, causing more damage.

At some point, Willis bailed out of the vehicle and tried to elude the officers converging on the scene.

He was stopped by state park rangers, along with Ocean View, Bethany Beach and state police officers.

Rhodes said Willis initially resisted officers who noticed a strong odor of alcohol on his breath and tried to field test him at the scene.

He was taken to Beebe Hospital to have blood drawn and again physically resisted the officer drawing the blood. Officers had to use a stun gun on Willis, police said in court records.

Willis is being held in the Sussex Correctional Institution after failing to post $5,000 cash bail.

Written by TERRI SANGINITI The News Journal
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Reggie Fountain seeks court win against former company

 
 Reggie Fountain may have parted ways late last year with the company that bears his name, but the two parties continue to battle in court. The accusations range from the alleged stealing of trade secrets and intellectual property by Fountain to the company’s retaining trophies and other property Fountain said are rightfully his.

The lawsuits, countersuits and motions were filed in North Carolina Business Court by Reggie Fountain and Fountain Powerboats, with documents dating from March. Both sides seem determined to prove they were the one wronged in the business relationship they once shared.

In early 2010, Fountain Powerboats emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with a new owner in Liberty Associates. As part of the reorganization plan, Fountain was kept on as president and CEO of the company.

However, according to both parties, the arrangement quickly soured, culminating with Fountain announcing his resignation in December 2010, citing key differences in philosophy with the new owners he once welcomed with open arms.

The recent court filings started with Fountain accusing Fountain Powerboats of not paying him $75,000 he says is owed to him through a consulting agreement he’d entered into with Westport Shipyard regarding the development of a proposed 50-foot boat, as well as refusing to return to him items that include hundreds of trophies, plaques, photographs and other items of memorabilia that Fountain said belonged to him.

“Basically I just want my pictures and trophies back,” Fountain told Soundings Trade Only. ”It was a simple [lawsuit] and it got more complicated.” 

In May, Fountain Powerboats filed an answer to the claims and made additional counterclaims against Fountain. The company said Fountain did not have the authority to enter into an agreement with Westport Shipyard for payment directly to himself and denied it owed him $75,000. Also, the company said, the property Fountain referred to in his filings is not owned by him, but by the company. Fountain Powerboats said it will relinquish the property if Reggie Fountain can produce evidence of ownership.

“We did give Mr. Fountain the benefit of the doubt on a lot of stuff, but there were things that were clearly team efforts paid for by the company that should remain with the company,” Liberty Associates CEO Bill Gates said.

In addition, Fountain Powerboats alleged in its counterclaim that Fountain took steps to launch a competing company before he resigned; he copied computer files; his son took a server hard drive from the premises and copied it; he took boat designs, sales and marketing information, customer lists and vendor information from the company and has used Fountain Powerboat designs and trade secrets in his new company, RF Powerboats.

Fountain denied the majority of these counterclaims in a nearly 100-page reply laced with the colorful language he is known for within the industry. He also asserted that he was CEO in name only and not given the authority to do his job. Also, he said, RF Powerboats has no tooling, has not built a single boat and is not trying to take customers away from Fountain Powerboats.

RF Powerboats, he said, has started off as a service and “customization” company, not a boatbuilder. Although there are people that would like boats from RF right now, Fountain said he’s not in a financial position to create the necessary tooling.

There are no trade secrets residing in Fountain Powerboat computers, Fountain said. The company holds no patents. Fountain said he didn’t need to take any computer files or designs because all of the information about how to build the boats was in his head.

“I invented all that stuff,” he said. “We were an open book. …There were no secrets. It’s what I know in my head from 50-plus years of experience.”

“There is nothing ‘secret’ or ‘proprietary’ about applied knowledge, testing, prior art, experience and marketing terminology,” he wrote in court documents, comparing his talents in boatbuilding with those of LeBron James in basketball or Michael Phelps in swimming.

“Both worked tirelessly for thousands of hours to sharpen their talents, and they displayed outstanding discipline to help achieve their goals. Along the way many coaches helped them with prior and proven methods of training and technique,” court documents state. “But none of these coaches or employers acquired any rights to trade secrets or proprietary interests in the God-given talents of either athlete.”

Fountain’s response to the counterclaim also includes numerous allegations of financial issues involving Liberty, Gates and others in the company.

Gates told Soundings Trade Only it is “untrue” that his company is at risk financially and accused Fountain of maliciously including information about past court cases and financial dealings that have nothing to do with the issues at hand. Fountain Powerboats, he said, plans to file motions to strike those exhibits, as well as other “miscellaneous information,” from the record.

Fountain Powerboats, he said, is up and running and successful – with more than 170 employees working there this spring and summer. “Are we building boats? Yes. Are we seeing sales far above what we had when [Fountain] was there? The answer is yes.

“Liberty did everything we said we were going to do and more,” he added. “Mr. Fountain and the management of the company – that’s where the shortfall was.”

For his part, Fountain said he wants the new owners of Fountain Powerboats to “get what they deserve.”

“I want to see justice done,” he said.

Posted on 01 September 2011-Beth Rosenberg
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BoatUS estimates vessel damage at $500 million

BoatUS estimates vessel damage at $500 million

Posted on 30 August 2011

Hurricane Irene likely caused an estimated $500 million in damage to boats, according to Jim Holler, senior vice president of underwriting for BoatUS.

 That figure, he said, does not include damage to boating facilities, and includes all boats, whether insured or not, in all states affected by the storm. What made Irene so powerful, he said, was not the wind, but the large geographic area it affected, the rain, the flooding and the storm surge.

Despite the losses incurred up and down the East Coast, inland areas of New York and New England and in the Bahamas, BoatUS officials said boaters and marina owners seemed to take heed of the storm warnings and take precautions to protect their boats.

“Our members and our insurers who took advantage of our named storm haul-out provision of the policy, where we will reimburse them 50 percent of the cost of hauling their boat out up to $1,000 … have fared much, much better and in most cases had no damage. The boats that are damaged, almost exclusively, are boats that were left in the water and boats that were left in the water on moorings,” Carroll Robertson, senior vice president of claims for BoatUS, told Soundings Trade Only this morning.

So far, Boat US has received about 1,000 calls from those it insures letting it know that they are taking advantage of this provision. Robertson said she expects that number to grow.

Some of the most significant pockets of calls are coming from the Hudson River Valley and Lake George, N.Y., as well as Cape Cod, Mass., she added.

 “I think not only did our members take heed in protecting their boats, I think the marinas to a large extent up and down the East Coast took heed of these warnings and prepared their facilities well, as well,” Holler said.

“The [Chesapeake] Bay did not see the surge and the high waters that it saw during Isobel, and I think that’s one of the things that saved a lot of the boats on the bay, and we don’t see the damage on the Chesapeake Bay like we did with  [Hurricane] Isobel [in 2003],” he added. “There was not the high surge.”

Jerry Cardarelli, vice president of BoatUS Towing Services, said the least amount of damage was reported by TowBoatUS locations where there were mandatory evacuations, such as along the Jersey shore and North Carolina.

The worst damage reported so far has come from New Bedford, Mass., he said. A new hurricane barrier had recently been built there, and it’s believed that many boaters thought that would protect them from the storm.

Only about 50 boats were hauled out prior to the storm. TowBoat US has since done 15 salvages in the area, and an estimated 50 to 100 boats sustained damage, Cardarelli said.

“They said it was crazy,” he added. “They had such high exposure, and people just didn’t move their boats. It seemed the Northeast, especially Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, seemed to be the least prepared and so far has reported the most damage.”

Cardarelli estimated that TowBoatUS had a 10 percent surge in calls for haulouts last week before the storm and, although it’s quiet now, he expects to get a lot of calls this weekend.

“We expect a high surge of towing breakdown cases this weekend because people are going to go back to their boats in the Carolinas and the Jersey coastline and Long Island,” he said. “They’ve been inland, but they have their boats on the coast, and they’re either going to launch them on their trailers or go back to the marinas to survey what happened and then take them out, and there’s a good chance they’re going to break down this weekend – and it’s Labor Day weekend, the third-highest towing weekend of the summer.”

– Beth Rosenberg

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The Euphoric Chronicles: The Tale of Tonii the Mermaid (contd.)

                                                                            Elsewhere and Meanwhile

   Of course there were other things happening in the ‘shire while Tonii was away at school because although it was an idyllic place to live it was not without its problems. The main issue as it related to the islands and the loch was a brewing power struggle between the brothers Keeve. It seemed inevitable to those who had watched the brothers grow up over the years that there would be a conflict sooner or later between these two opposites. Gregee had been traveling more and more, often going out for years at a time to distant lands and when he would come back he would spout off about all that he had seen and done and the wonders of these places. He would talk of the money, the riches that these distant lands of wonderment were taking from the travelers who trekked from afar to visit them. He wanted to do the same thing in Lollashire and the loch. He saw the islands as a means for him to become wealthy and he already knew that with wealth came power and it was power that he craved more than anything else in this world.     

   Wealth and power would make people see beyond his twisted body and warped mind. They would respect him, love him, and most importantly, fear him. He knew in order for this to happen he would have to remove the one person standing in his way, his brother Seejay. So, he thought to himself, I will have to have him killed. Anything short of that and he could always come back and wrest control of the ‘shire from him. He would have to dispose of him in such a way as to not make him a martyr. The last thing he needed were statues being sculpted in his likeness or shrines being erected in his name. No, no. That wouldn't do at all. So it couldn't be a visible death so a poisoning, robbery or anything like that were definitely out of the question. He needed to disappear. Yes! That’s it disappear. He would just simply be gone.  One day everyone in the ‘shire would wake up and Seejay would be gone. But to where? Better that it not be a where and just be a nothing. In an instant it came to Gregee how he would dispose of his brother. He summoned his most loyal friend Bildoe and put his plan in motion.

    Tonii had enjoyed a two week stay with her father but now it was time to head back to the academy. Her father wanted to walk her back to the school but she knew how busy he was, how much of the seemingly never-ending work was left to be done so she told him that he need not worry as she had many friends and places to stop at along the well traveled Rue Tonnerre, the main road from the fishing village to the heart of Lollashire. She kissed her father goodbye and with a wave of her hand she started on her way back to school. She had no way of knowing that it was the last time she would see him alive.

   Gregee had left it up to Bildoe and his cronies as to when they would take care of Seejay. He furnished them with an overview of Seejay’s schedule for the next week and he made it clear to Bildoe that he he didn’t care when or how as long as Seejay was gone before the end of the week. Nothing, not even his brother, would stand in his way of achieving the power he so desperately craved. Deals had already been made and a timetable set.

    Seejay had set off the very afternoon that Tonii was making her way back to Lollashire and in fact they passed each other on the well traveled Rue Tonnerre. Seejay was atop his trusted stead, Avaya, a beautiful chestnut brown mare he had since he was in his teen years. He was out on one of the many rides he took during the week. He didn't call them patrols even though that was in essence what he was doing. He would stop and talk with the shop owners, innkeepers, tradesmen, and travelers that he met while on his rides. It was one of the things that had endeared him to the residents of the ‘shire and it was a trait that he had passed to the protectors or sheriffs that reported to him. He had them placed throughout the islands and they not only kept the peace but made sure that the beauty of the ‘shire and the loch was protected.

   Seejay was deep in thought, thinking over the growing rift with his brother. He had always been a little strange but he loved him even so. He was troubled that Gregee had changed somehow; he seemed darker since he came back from his last trip beyond the ‘shires. He was pressing, almost ranting, about opening up the waters of the loch to people from the outside and to Seejay that meant outside interests. There was no way that the loch would ever be opened up to outsiders to plunder its resources. The very fact that the Keeves had kept it protected these many ages was the reason why it was so coveted and was heralded as one of the Three Majestics. It must be protected at all costs. He would make Gregee understand that or he would have to exile him to the mainland.

   These were his thoughts and he had his head down when he saw a solitary figure walking towards him. As the figure grew closer he could see that it was a young woman and she looked familiar somehow. He stopped his mount as she drew near him and he let out a pleasant greeting. She walked up beside Avaya and looked up at Seejay and replied in kind to his greeting. As soon as she looked up at him Seejay was speechless. He knew her by those eyes, that iridescent blue. He had never come across anyone else with that color except for Tonii, the daughter of the fisherman. The last time he had seen her up close was when he was at the market buying some of her father’s catch. That was at least eight years ago. Could that much time really have passed? It didn't seem possible. He then remembered that she had been up at the Academie Valan vo’ Du so he hadn't seen her since.

   He suddenly felt very old although he was but seven years older than she. She knew him and his name and asked about his journey, his patrol. He was still speechless. Her eyes held his very being within them and would not let go. She put her hand upon Avaya’s mane and brushed the long hairs with her fingers. Avaya whinnied approvingly and that was enough to bring him out of this apparent stupor. He felt the need to be on the ground standing next to her and not sitting up so high. He dismounted but the heel of his boot got caught in the stirrup and he landed awkwardly on his knees in front of her, a small cloud of dust floating around him. It was said that he had been riding horses before he could walk and was regarded highly for his riding skills but at this moment he felt like a foolish boy. He stood up and stood just about half a head taller than Tonii but he still felt small in front of her. She didn't laugh at him or his mishap. In fact she asked after him, if he was all right. He replied that he was. He then asked her about her father and then her studies at the academy. She filled him in, answering all that he has asked. She then again asked about his patrol and in general how he was. He stammered a bit but managed to answer her after he collected himself. She told him that she must be on her way as she wanted to be at the school well before nightfall. It was ridiculous but he did not want to see her go. He wanted to walk with her and continue to talk about anything, he really didn't care what. He asked if he could escort her back to the academy and she told him that she appreciated his gesture but she knew he had his duties and she quite enjoyed the time alone, walking.

   He looked crestfallen, almost hurt and she saw that look come across his face although he tried to hide it well. She quickly made amends and mentioned that perhaps the next time she was on her way to or from her father’s house he could join her as she would very much appreciate a Keeve escorting her. He smiled at her and assured her that he would make himself available at her convenience. She bade him farewell and continued on her journey. He watched her walk away and he was afraid to move for fear of doing something stupid again like falling from his horse. He walked Avaya for a bit, turning his head frequently to watch her progress as she became just a distant speck on the Rue. He chuckled to himself, reliving the moment he fell to his knees in front of her. What a fool he must have made of himself, a glorious fool at that but he took comfort in knowing that he would see her again. He could not have been more wrong in his thinking.

 To be continued…………………..