Last night I talked to friend of mine that was at the event as a boater. He said that he heard from several sources that this was as close to what happened as Bill Kissiah could remember.
Bill Kissiah was driving the boat and Nik Kaylor was the passenger. They blasted off and had run about 30-40 miles when they hit a rough patch of waves kicked up by the high winds. The boat went airborne and threw Nik Kaylor out of the boat. Nik Kaylor was wearing a life jacket. Once the boat came to a stop Kissiah could see Kaylor alive and waiving at him. Kissiah tried to start the big motor but it would not start. It apparently had been swamped and was inoperable. The water and waves were really rough and the boat was drifting away from Kaylor very fast. Kissiah made his way up the deck of the boat and lowered the trolling motor. ANOTHER big wave hit and threw him overboard. He was able to get back to the boat and hung on to the trolling motor and wrapped the rope around his arm. He never saw Nik Kaylor again. Water tempratures were cool and the ambient air was between 34 and 40 degrees that day. Kissiah was found around 11
M that night almost dead from hypothermia. Six days later they found Kaylor's body. They think he died of hypothermia.
The air search teams could not see Kaylors dark colored life jacket when they flew over the area he was found. A commercial vessel just happened to see his body. With all the Grass and other surface colors the dark color just blended in. Here is the thing that will most likely be coming out of FLW after this tragedy. High Visibility Life Jackets will probably be mandatory.