ELLSWORTH — After deliberating for less than two hours Thursday, a Hancock County Superior Court jury found an Ellsworth man not guilty of operating a ski boat while under the influence of liquor.

Samuel R. Heckman, 37, was charged with the drunken boating offense in addition to charges of operating a boat at an imprudent speed, operating a boat so as to endanger others and reckless operation of a boat after a May 27, 1989, collision on Green Lake in Dedham.

The early evening accident occurred when Heckman’s boat struck a boat operated by Galen Cole of Bangor. Some passengers received minor injuries as a result of the crash, and the boats received substantial damage, according to Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Warden Charles Allen.

Before the beginning of the proceedings, Justice Eugene Beaulieu granted motions for the dismissal of all charges with the exception of the drunken boating charge. Heckman’s defense attorney, Edward McSweeney, sought dismissal on the grounds that the language in the court citations did not support the charges listed on the facing page of the documents.

During the two-day trial, Hancock County District Attorney Michael E. Povich argued that Heckman may have consumed enough liquor before the accident to have become mentally impaired. Heckman testified that he purchased four bottles of beer before arriving at Green Lake for an evening of water skiing with his three passengers.

Admitting that he drank one beer on the way to the lake while driving his truck with the boat in tow, Heckman said he opened a second beer after launching the boat. The Ellsworth man admitted to drinking only a portion of the second beer before climbing behind the wheel of the boat.

Heckman testified that he noticed the Cole boat approaching him from the south as he left the northerly end of the lake to return home. He said he was operating at about 40 mph when he momentarily averted his eyes from the bow at the narrows portion of the lake.

In that instant, he said, Cole moved his boat into a U-turn and crossed the path of his southbound ski boat. Heckman immediately shut down the throttle on the boat and turned starboard, the same direction that the Cole boat had taken. Heckman said a collision ensued and that his boat flipped over after the impact damaged the Cole boat.

Cole told the jury that he made his turn in plenty of time for a safe change of direction, but that the Heckman boat was moving at about 70 mph when it closed on his boat. Cole said Heckman was not looking in his direction in the seconds before the crash.

One witness testified that between 50 and 100 beer cans were in the water after spilling out from the Heckman boat. The number was later explained by Heckman and his son as the accumulation of about five years of litter. Another witness said that someone had thrown some brown bottles out into the deep part of the lake immediately after the accident, act Povich claimed was an attempt to destroy evidence.

Once the boat was taken ashore by volunteers, Sally Lavertu talked with Heckman. She testified that his eyes were red and that there was the strong odor of alcohol on his breath. Two police officers who spoke with Heckman at the Maine Coast Memorial Hospital after the accident said it was their opinion that he was under the influence of liquor.

Unlike today’s boating laws, there was no implied-consent provision similar to drunken driving statutes last May and officers were not required to obtain a blood or breath sample from Heckman.

McSweeney repeatedly asked the jury to consider what real evidence it had to justify a conviction of drunken operation of a boat. He said that the state had failed to prove that Heckman had consumed any more beer than he had admitted to drinking and that the police officers reached an opinion based on the situation at the moment of their evaluation.

“It’s not illegal to have alcohol on your breath and there’s a myriad of reasons why his eyes might have been red,” McSweeney said.

Povich countered that the totality of the evidence supported the state’s allegations against Heckman.