KENNEWICK — Jean Theoret was ready to die.

He waited for the rescue team to arrive for him, and in reality, they were there pretty fast.

Theoret had just flipped the U-37 hydroplane on the first day of competition of the 2009 season, in Madison, Ind., on July 4.

The boat had landed upside down, yet by all accounts Theoret wasn’t really hurt.

“I had nothing wrong with me physically,” Theoret recounted while in Lampson Pits on Thursday afternoon. “My oxygen mask was on my face. I took my steering wheel off. But the tube itself that carries the oxygen to my mask had broken.”

And the water started seeping in, as he sat inside the cockpit upside down. He was forced to swallow some of the Ohio River. Continue Reading…