There was a loud crash and Mark Ulander looked up just as the roaring, high-performance boat leapt over the 32-foot cabin cruiser, sparks flying. Then it was quiet.

The 38-foot Donzi 38ZR high-performance boat glided a few hundred yards ahead. Then Ulander's wife, Belle, heard a man's voice from their dock on Smith Mountain Lake.

"I hit a boat. I hit a boat," the frightened voice said.

Saturday night's collision instantly killed Judith Lewis, 59, and her 58-year-old husband, Lawrence, a retired couple returning home after dinner with friends at a dock at Compass Cove.

Their Wellcraft cabin cruiser was headed upstream near channel marker R24 when the Donzi - which has two engines each capable of 500 horsepower - struck it from behind at more than 60 mph, said Lt. Karl Martin of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

As the Game Department continued its investigation, the crash raised concerns once again about boating safety on the lake, which has a reputation as the state's most dangerous body of water. One friend of the Lewises said it was time to post speed limits in some areas.

"I would hope that that would happen after this," said Anne Mohapt.

Authorities say alcohol and speed each played a factor in the wreck.

The Donzi's driver, Mark de Tournillon, 45, was temporarily hospitalized with injuries described as not life-threatening. De Tournillon, owner of Shoreline Marina in Moneta, has not been charged in the incident.

"We are still following up on information, interviewing witnesses," Martin said. "We try to determine what occurred prior to, during and after the collision."

According to an affidavit for a search warrant seeking de Tournillon's medical records, he told a game warden after the crash that he had not been drinking alcohol but was taking three drugs, including the pain relievers Lortab and Naprosyn.

In the emergency room later at Carilion Bedford Memorial Hospital, however, de Tournillon told the game warden he also had drunk a glass of Merlot with dinner at Mariner's Landing earlier, according to the affidavit. The odor of alcohol could be detected on de Tournillon at the scene and at the hospital, the affidavit says.

De Tournillon could not be reached for comment.

Online court records show that de Tournillon was convicted in Franklin County General District Court last year of operating a boat recklessly, and of eluding police. The circumstances surrounding the convictions were unavailable Monday.

Under a law that went into effect July 1, anyone who operates a boat under the influence during an incident in which someone is killed can be charged with manslaughter. Another new law aimed at reducing the number of serious accidents on the waterway requires the Game Department to have at least one game warden patrolling the lake during peak summer hours, when most boating and other crashes occur.

There was one Game Department patrol boat on the lake at the time of the accident, and it responded within a few minutes, said Lt. Tony Fisher, who helps oversee the department's enforcement efforts at the lake.

The channel near marker R24 was relatively crowded Saturday about 10 p.m. when the accident occurred, Martin said. It was a moonlit night and both boats had their lights on.

Nonetheless, Martin said, "common sense dictates that you slow down when visibility is not as great as it would be at 10 in the morning."

De Tournillon was a sponsor of the annual Tom Maynard Memorial Poker Run, the Smith Mountain Lake Boating Association's largest fundraiser, said Tom Curling, the association's president. Some have said that speedboats should be banned from the lake, Curling acknowledged.

"It's a matter of making people boat smart," he said. "It's not the boat, it's not the personal watercraft, it's not the fishing boat. What's dangerous on the lake are the people who are operating them."

Staff writers Mark Taylor and Jay

Conley contributed to this report.