Fun and games at the Big Ballard Lock

I was just flipping through some of the Google Earth photos of my neighborhood when I came upon this one...

http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/4629053.jpg
(same photo uploaded below if that works better)

Boats are inbound and my guess is that the freshwater gates just opened. It appears that at least a couple of bow lines had premature releases. A good audience was on hand to witness the ensuing mayhem. It's a bit like a Nascar crowd, they may say they are there for the pageantry, but you know most just want to see the crashes. You can only hope all the gel-coat survived.

I remember being down there (on land) and watching a rather large yacht (name - Megabyte - still remember that) come into the small lock, and his throttle stuck. He managed to spin it 90, but then hit the south wall almost head on at about 5 knots - throttles still locked. Boat screeched it's way down the wall and turned back the way it came before skippers Dad made it to the engine room to shut things down...
always a fun place to eat lunch