Operator was operating his vessel on the upper part of the pungo river on the morning of july 3, 2011 around 11:00am. Operator had one other adult male, 2 adult females, 2 children on board, and pulling 2 female children on a tube.  Operator was heading north towards the hwy 264 bridge at a speed of approximately 10-20 miles per hour.  While approaching the bridge, operator had lined his boat up to go thru 2 sets of pylons to make it under the bridge.  As he got closer to the bridge, operator noticed that there was a green arrow pointing to the right and a while arrow pointing to the left painted on the set of pylons just to the right of where he had lined his boat up to go.  The marked pylons are used to show boaters the preferred route to take under the bridge.  Operator made an abrupt right hand turn to get through the marked pylons with the painted arrows.  As he made the turn, the tube he was pulling slid outside of the boats wake to the port side of the boat.  Operator realized that the tube wasn't going to make it through the pylons and he operated the boat as far to the right while going under the bridge as he could to try to get the tube back in the boat's wake.  The tube then collided with the first pylon on the left side of the marked pylons while entering under the bridge.  Operator's daughter was riding on the left side of the tube and struck the pylon first.  The other female on the tube which was riding on the right side, was thrown off without injury.  Tuber1 suffered a broken left ankle due to the collision with the pylon.  The boat had minor scratches on the starboard side due to the collision with the pylon.  During officer investigation, it was determined no drugs or alcohol was involved.
BELHAVEN                      