PORTLAND – The woman who was aboard Robert LaPointe’s boat during last summer’s fatal crash on Long Lake in Harrison testified at his manslaughter trial Wednesday that he drank two beers while socializing with her parents shortly before the nighttime accident.

Nicole Randall, 20, a family friend of LaPointe, said a smaller boat came up from behind without its lights on before LaPointe, 39, of Medway, Mass., sped off several minutes later in his 32-foot boat.

Randall recalled that she felt the impact of the ensuing collision and then went into the water. She and LaPointe managed to swim to shore.

The Aug. 11, 2007, crash killed the two occupants of a 14-foot boat, Terry Raye Trott of Naples and Suzanne Groetzinger of Berwick.

The state claims that LaPointe was intoxicated at the time of the crash; the defense says he was sober.

Randall, one of several witnesses to testify on the second day of LaPointe’s trial in Cumberland County Superior Court, said the defendant drank the two beers after he had tied his boat up to her parents’ pontoon boat for about 45 minutes.

Randall said LaPointe was traveling at about 35 mph at the time of the accident; the prosecution contends that his boat, equipped with twin 435-horsepower engines, was going at least 45 mph.

Earlier in the day, witnesses described the sights and sounds of the collision, saying the noise of the crash was preceded by a loud roar of boat engines.

“It was just the loudest sound I heard in my life. It sounded like a plane crashing,” said Susan Barton of Portland, whose family camp is next to the lake.

Barton testified that she walked to the dock and spotted a couple swimming to shore.

“They just looked like two people swimming. They were very calm,” Barton said. The woman, she testified, said “‘Here we are, we’re here,’ just as calm as could be.”

When the two climbed on the dock, Barton said, LaPointe told her that “a boat had hit him and it didn’t have lights on.”

In addition to manslaughter, LaPointe faces charges of aggravated drunken driving and reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon.