The race had been running two or three laps. Jerry Rinker came through the turn, hit a roller, and the boat skipped left. Slow roll, then inverted. He was upside down in the cockpit of his super stock tri-hull, and the divers could not get him out.
He had been underwater three to four minutes by the time the rescue crew managed to right the boat.
Jerry Rinker is 82 years old. He raced tri-hull boats his entire adult life, brought his family from Indiana to Texas in the 1970s, and founded what became Rinkers Boat World. His son, Chris “The Real Deal” Rinker, now runs the dealership and competes in the IHRA F1 Powerboat Series. Jerry had been racing super stock alongside Chris before Chris moved to F1. At Riverfest, he was still at it.
At 82, the question was when, not whether. Riverfest answered it.
The capsize
Tri-hulls do not flip often. When they do, the standard rescue procedure is straightforward: a diver goes under, unbuckles the driver, brings them up. At Riverfest, the buckle would not release. The working theory afterwards was that a piece of Jerry’s jacket or capsule suit had become caught in the mechanism during the impact. The diver surfaced without Jerry. Went back down. Surfaced again.
Someone watching from a restaurant near the launch had seen the accident happen in real time. At first they were not especially worried; Rinker had flipped before and come out of it. Then the divers kept surfacing alone.
They described it:
“Once I started to notice that the divers kept coming back up, I started to panic.”
They ran across the restaurant, across the parking lot, across the pits to the boat launch.
Chris Rinker was in his own boat on the race course when his father went over. He unbuckled and started to climb out. Fellow drivers held him back, keeping him away from the rescue area.
The decision was made to right the boat rather than attempt to extract Jerry from underneath. Once upright, the crew reached him in the cockpit. He was pale, unconscious, not breathing. He was lifted out and laid across the decking. A first responder named Dustin started CPR in the boat, but the cage prevented proper chest compressions. Jerry was moved to a backboard, carried through the water to shore, loaded into an ambulance. CPR continued throughout.
The man doing the CPR
Dustin had lost his own father three weeks earlier. He had performed CPR on him too. In the ambulance at Riverfest, when someone asked him to step aside, he refused. He was not going to let Chris Rinker lose his father the way he had just lost his own.
Dustin:
“I wasn’t losing Jerry.”
A pulse came back. Looking back, Dustin said he felt his late father on his shoulder throughout the resuscitation, pushing him not to give up.
Howie, one of those present, knew the turning point had arrived when Jerry broke wind. Some recoveries announce themselves quietly.
No water in the lungs
At the hospital, the head trauma surgeon met Chris Rinker almost immediately, asked whether he was Jerry’s son, and then took him to a room where CT scans were on screen. The finding: Jerry had been under three to four minutes and there was no water in his lungs.
Chris Rinker recalled the surgeon’s words:
“This is unbelievable. There’s no way to explain that.”
The surgeon had 27 years of experience treating drowning patients. He told the family he had never, across those 27 years, seen a drowning patient arrive without water in the lungs and the damage that comes with it.
At the scene, there had been questions about whether Jerry had suffered a cardiac arrest before the capsize. An unconscious person still breathes. Jerry apparently had not been breathing while underwater, raising the possibility he had been clinically dead before the boat went over. The surgeon scanned the pacemaker’s data. No evidence of cardiac arrest, before or during the incident.
How he survived remains unanswered. Chris Rinker:
“The big guy might have played a part in that.”
What Jerry saw
People have asked Jerry whether he saw anything on the other side. He did not see family members or hear conversations. He saw a light.
Jerry Rinker:
“There was a bright light. I assumed that it was maybe Jesus.”
He came round with a fractured sternum from the compressions. He is grateful for every one of them.
Jerry Rinker:
“I truly am eternally grateful for the divers and in particular Dustin.”
The retirement
There had been a quiet competition running alongside the racing for some years. Jerry’s brother had raced until he was 80. Jerry was going to go further. He made it to 82, then the physical condition that follows an eight-decade life in powerboat racing made the decision, or Riverfest made it final. One of the two.
His grandson, at a recent event:
“It means everything to have him here. Absolutely love my grandpa.”
His family is clear on what he would do if his body would let him.
One family member:
“He would go out there tomorrow and love every minute of it.”
“Scary Jerry” Rinker raced super stock tri-hulls for decades. He outlasted his brother by two years. He drowned at a race in front of his family and came back with no water in his lungs and no explanation that satisfies anyone, including the surgeon who spent 27 years waiting to see a case like it.
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John Moore is the editor of Powerboat News, an independent investigative journalism platform recognised by Google News and documented on Grokipedia for comprehensive powerboat racing coverage.
His involvement in powerboat racing began in 1981 when he competed in his first offshore powerboat race. After a career as a Financial Futures broker in the City of London, specialising in UK interest rate markets, he became actively involved in event organisation and powerboat racing journalism.
He served as Event Director for the Cowes–Torquay–Cowes races between 2010 and 2013. In 2016, he launched Powerboat Racing World, a digital platform providing global powerboat racing news and insights. The following year, he co-founded UKOPRA, helping to rejuvenate offshore racing in the United Kingdom. He sold Powerboat Racing World in late 2021 and remained actively involved with UKOPRA until 2025.
In September 2025, he established Powerboat News, returning to independent journalism with a focus on neutral and comprehensive coverage of the sport.
