New report offers survivor account from deadly Tahoe boat capsize
As waves from a sudden, fierce Sierra storm began to swamp a luxury 28-foot speedboat on Lake Tahoe last June, some of the passengers onboard tried bailing out water with a cooler, but they did so with “no sense of urgency,” a survivor told investigators from the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office.
After the boat’s motor cut out, and a particularly large wave crashed over the side, the survivor, Amy Friduss, put on a lifejacket and handed others out to her nine companions in the boat. Nobody else put one on.
Only Friduss and her mother, who was rescued clinging to a life preserver, survived when the boat soon afterward capsized and threw its ten occupants into the lake. Friduss and her mother were both suffering from hypothermia when investigators pulled them out, according to a new investigative report released by the sheriff’s office Wednesday.
The report offers a few new details to a tragedy that shook Tahoe’s boating community last summer, coming as it did on a day when no small-craft warning advisories were issued to boaters but rare weather and a fast-moving storm created havoc on the lake, tossing boats onto the shore and damaging others out on the water. Much of investigators’ findings was included in a report published by the National Transportation Surface Board last July.
Joshua Pickles, a 37-year-old DoorDash executive, owned the boat and was one of those killed, as were his parents.
For the occupants of Over the Moon, a high-end Chris Craft pleasure boat with an inboard motor designed by Volvo, June 21 began as a summer day on the lake and included a pre-noon pickup of two gallons of an iconic Tahoe rum concoction known as Wet Woody’s from a dockside restaurant.
Autopsy reports would later indicate that six of the eight people killed had alcohol in their systems, but none had crossed the legal limit for operating a boat. Investigators concluded alcohol or drugs were not a factor in the incident. The boat does not appear to have been overloaded either. It had seating for 12 people. Sheriff investigators described Pickles as a novice operator of the boat., which he had recently purchased.
Over the Moon motored from Homewood Marina, a docking facility on the lake’s west shore below the ski hill of the same name, cruising south across a then calm lake to picturesque Emerald Bay. Investigators report the boat anchored there for 1 to 1.5 hours. The wind was light and the sky was clear and the temperature was a cool 54 degrees.
As clouds began to gather in the early afternoon, Pickles decided to pull up the anchor and return to Homewood, according to the repot. Over the course of the next hour, the weather deteriorated rapidly. As wind and rain picked up once Pickles had left Emerald Bay, he abandoned his retreat homeward and motored back into the shelter of Emerald Bay.
The storm’s ferocity increased. Air temperatures dropped as much as fourteen degrees in minutes, according to the National Weather Service. Some estimates have put the wind-driven waves that day at six-to-eight feet. Friduss told investigators they appeared as high as ten feet just before the boat capsized. Friduss recalled marble-sized hail pelting the boat just before, after a discussion with some other men on the boat, Pickles made a decision to again try to steer for Homewood Marina.
The boat battled through heavy waves after leaving the bay, and water began to accumulate in the boat as they broke over its sides and bow, Friduss told investigators. Video from another boat on the lake that day, a charter craft, showed it heaving in the wind-driven swell.
Over the Moon was about 50 to 100 yards off the west shore of the lake when its engine stopped. Just after 2:45 p.m., engine codes later reviewed after investigators salvaged the boat indicate water had likely flooded the engine and blown a fuse.
The boat turned broadside to the waves, which were running from north to south down the lake, and at that point it quickly began to swamp.
Friduss told investigators she handed out lifejackets after the boat listed, with its starboard aft or back-right corner underwater. The NTSB report says investigators ultimately found lifejackets still in their packaging, and others in storage compartments. When the boat rolled over and as people swam, Friduss recalled snow starting to fall.
Rescue crews pulled eight people out of the water that day. The next day, officials pulled a body out of the lake, where it had come to rest 220 feet beneath the surface. The following day they found the final body even deeper, under 330 feet of water. (Lake Tahoe goes down more than 1,600 feet at its deepest point, according to the U.S. National Forest Service.)
Besides Pickles, the seven other people who died were between 63 and 73 years old, according to previous reporting. Pickles’ parents were among them, as was his uncle.
The NTSB is still investigating the accident, according to its website.
A sheriff’s department boat that responded to the Chris Craft’s capsize also ended up disabled and pushed against the lakeshore, and two deputies aboard had to be picked up by the crew of a responding South Lake Tahoe Fire Rescue boat, according to previous Bee reporting. The sheriff’s department report released Tuesday, which is dated Aug. 21, 2025, does not include any accounting of its own boat running into problems.
“El Dorado Couny Sheriff Office Marine 3 (with two deputies aboard) responded to the area of the incident and arrived on scene at approximately 1508 hours,” the report says, without elaborating further.
