Bad news coming out of Miami

Very sad to hear.
I pray all injured a speedy recovery, and RIP to the unfortunately deceased.
 
Our thoughts and prayers are with the Families. Anything we can do from Maryland let me know
 
Just caught the tail end of the Miami news, they had film of Mixed Emotions being towed in and had talked to family members.
 
Second victim of crash was world explorer
BY JAMES H. BURNETT III AND JENNIFER LEBOVICH
jburnett@MiamiHerald.com


COURTESY OF LEE AND CATHY WARWICK
Clive Warwick is pictured with his girlfriend Kathy Simkins. Some people just live life. Clive Warwick embraced it.
At 60, the Aventura resident, who died Monday afternoon in a boat crash on Biscayne Bay along with real estate tycoon Steven Posner, had circumnavigated the world at least twice. Several times a year he visited new places, often ``just to be able to say he was getting to know new people and understanding new places,'' said his only child, Lee Warwick.

In October, Clive Warwick scaled Mount Everest, his son said. ``When he made it back, we were so grateful. . .We told him how concerned we were that he wouldn't survive that climb. But he survived it, and he made it back down, only to die this way.''

The accident occured about 1 p.m. Monday, when Warwick, Posner and Posner's cousin Stuart -- all riding on Steven Posner's high-performance boat -- collided with a nearly identical vessel on Biscayne Bay, a mile or two east of Matheson Hammock Marina.

Both men died from blunt force trauma to the head, according to the Miami-Dade medical examiner's office. The deaths were ruled accidental.

Warwick was thrown from the boat and was in the water for a brief time, a factor that contributed to his death, the ME's office said.

Stuart Posner, who remained in critical condition at the Ryder Trauma Center Tuesday evening, was operating the 44-foot boat at the time of the crash, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

POWERFUL

Both the Posner boat and the 46-foot Skater rigged with twin 1,200-horsepower engines with which it collided -- named Mixed Emotions -- were racing catamarans, capable of rocketing across the water at more than 100 mph. They are so powerful that they require two people to safely operate at high speeds -- a driver at the helm and a throttle man controlling the speed.

Both boats were heading north at a ``high rate of speed,'' said Officer Jorge Pino, a wildlife commission spokesman. GPS records will help authorities determine just how fast the boats were going when they collided.

Posner's boat was to the right of Mixed Emotions when the Posner boat made a turn to the left, striking the right side of the other boat, Pino said.

``We don't know why, but we know the vessel veered,'' Pino said.

Authorities are still trying to determine who the throttle man was on the Posner boat.

2ND BOAT

The Mixed Emotions was operated by Friedrich ``Fritz'' Eigelshoven, 27, and Mark McLennan, 53. Eigelshoven was treated and released from Mercy Hospital for unspecified injuries. McLennan was not injured.

A friend of both boat owners said Posner's boat was trying to overtake Mixed Emotions when the crash occurred.

Larry Goldman, owner of Xtreme Marine, a performance dealer in North Miami, said both men were his customers and had met through him. He said they saw each other near Grove Harbor Marina and decided to head out on the water together on the spur of the moment -- some 20 minutes before the crash.

`TOO CLOSE'

Goldman said Eigelshoven told him his vessel couldn't keep up with the Posners, and he had slowed down to about 75 mph waiting for them to circle back and around.

``That's when he saw the boat coming too close and started turning hard left,'' said Goldman. ``He realized they were coming at him. He turned away from them. That's the last he remembered.''

Efforts to reach Eigelshoven and McLennan Tuesday were unsuccessful.

Goldman said he and Eigelshoven visited Stuart Posner in the hospital Tuesday, where he is in intensive care for injuries to his head and upper body. He is able to speak, but has not yet been told about Steven Posner's death, Goldman said.

At Lee Warwick's Plantation home, he and his wife Cathy were in shock.

Their first child, Clive Warwick's first grandchild, is due in February.

`EMBRACED LIFE'

``He just embraced life so much. It's terrible to lose him this way,'' Cathy Warwick said.

Clive Warwick was born in England and moved to South Florida in the mid-'80s, she said. According to Lee, his father spent decades in the slot machine business, first repairing and later selling the machines.

``That's when he first began to travel,'' Lee said. ``He went, for work, to Biloxi, to Las Vegas, Macau. And he loved it so much that it led him to begin traveling on a regular basis, because he always said that was the best way to know the world -- to see it.''

Clive Warwick got to know the Posners from being a part of South Florida's close-knit boating community, Lee said.

``My dad loved to be on the water, and in the boating community people just meet and get to know one another through that common interest,'' Lee said. ``That's how he met Steven Posner and spent time with him, sometimes, on his boat.''

GOOD HEALTH

When he wasn't traveling with longtime girlfriend Kathy Simkins, Clive Warwick, who was divorced from Lee's mother 12 years ago, was working on maintaining good health.

``He walked a lot,'' Lee said.

``He loved it. It kept him fit. And in a way, it was a close-to-home version of travel for him, because it meant he was always on the go.''

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/...-victim-of-crash-was-world.html#ixzz16ssCqGPb
 
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