THE driver of a ski boat who failed to keep right on a popular waterway, cut a blind corner and caused a head-on crash with a jet ski that killed the rider, 54-year-old Danielle Taylor, and seriously injured her young passenger, has avoided a jail term in Newcastle District Court.
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David Lyle Boyd pleaded guilty to dangerous navigation occasioning death and dangerous navigation occasioning grievous bodily harm over the 2016 crash at Nerong and on Monday was placed on a 32-month intensive corrections order, which includes 18 months of home detention, ordered to complete 300 hours of community service and banned from holding a marine safety licence for five years, a sentence Judge Jennie Girdham, SC, had foreshadowed in December.
Boyd was towing a water skier behind a 5.6 metre vessel and heading north in the Myall Lakes waterways at Nerong on October 7, 2016.
Maritime regulations state the driver of a vessel must keep to the right hand side of any waterway and vessels approaching each other are expected to pass "port to port".
But Boyd was about 20 metres from the shore on his left when he rounded a blind left hand turn and saw a jet ski quickly approaching.
The two vessels were closing rapidly and Boyd took evasive action, pulling his boat further to the left at the same time Ms Taylor pulled her jet ski to the right, putting the vessels on a collision course.
They collided at speed and Ms Taylor and her young passenger were ejected from the jet ski.
