A 20-year-old man was arrested Saturday after a boat he allegedly stole from a marina crashed into a beach in Daytona Beach with no one aboard, the Daytona Beach Police Department said.
Investigators said Jonathan Race allegedly broke into Daytona Marina & Boat Works shortly before 4:45 a.m. Saturday, rummaged through two vessels, left belongings strewn across the boatyard and stole a 36-foot boat named Ethel Jeanne.
The boat later plowed into a beach at full speed, but Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers said no one was aboard the vessel.
FWC officers said they found paperwork on the boat that indicated it was being stored at the marina for repairs, and a pair of tan pants containing a cellphone, a wallet and Race’s driver’s license, according to an arrest report.
Police said they met with Race and interviewed him on the porch of a Port Orange home, where he told investigators that the last thing he remembered was drinking a couple of Four Loko drinks at a 7-Eleven across from the marina.
Race told investigators that he “blacked out” and was “rather drunk” and was “just making stupid decisions,” the report said.
He told investigators that the only thing he knows is that he woke up on the shore in Daytona Beach and walked back home to Port Orange, officials said.
Detectives said they asked Race if he noticed that he wasn’t wearing any pants, but he said he woke up wearing a pair of blue shorts that didn’t belong to him.
Race’s mother called investigators to ask them why her son was being arrested and as her son explained the story to her, she asked him several times what was he thinking, the report said.
Race was booked into the Volusia County Jail on grand theft and burglary charges. He was being held in lieu of a combined $8,500 bond.
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