Teen Safely Stops Runaway Boat on New Hampshire Lake

GILFORD, N.H. (AP) — An empty runaway boat speeding in circles on New Hampshire’s largest lake was safely stopped by a teenager who jumped aboard a personal watercraft.

Rich Bono, who filmed the events, said he was on the dock at Smith Cove on Lake Winnipesaukee on Wednesday when he heard some commotion in what is normally a quiet, no-wake area.

“I hear an engine running, I looked towards the end of the dock towards the noise and I saw a boat going round and round and round, and there was nobody on it,” he said. “Obviously, that’s not good.”

Bono later learned that the boat’s pilot, a sailing instructor, had reached into the water to pick up a tennis ball used for instruction when one of the students’ sailboats capsized. The sailboat’s mast struck the motorboat’s throttle, sending the instructor overboard and the boat into a spiral.

Brady Procon, 17, jumped on the back of his neighbor’s jet ski. They pulled up next to the fleeing boat, and Procon jumped on and cut the engine.

“Brady was a hero,” Bono said in an interview Monday.

Although there were several children in sailboats and other vessels moored nearby, no one was injured and no property was damaged, Bono said.

“That boat was under power, full throttle,” he said. “Boat engines are like meat grinders, they’re not very forgiving if you hit someone.”

Procon, who will join the U.S. Navy in the fall, told WMUR-TV the experience was both scary and fun.

“I would do it again,” he said.

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