Sailing and Civility--Incongruous bedfellows?

[Group9]

I guess we have all seen a few really messed up boaters.

My worst was during an informal race in a Cal 25 alongside anther sailboat, in a part of the Severn River that is a thousand yards wide. We were neck and neck, with about thirty feet between us, when a red cigarette style boat, going at least 70, went right between us from astern.

I looked for that boat the rest of the summer, hoping to catch it and the driver somewhere.

I also got caught in the wake of a 90 foot boat, that went through Baker's Haulover Inlet, pushing a ten foot bow wave, in my 32 foot powerboat and leaving me airborne as I was coming in with the tide and having to maintain some steerage way in the narrow inlet. In retrospect, I think that guy was just really inexperienced, rather than mean, though.

[David M]

Some yachties are accidental a-holes. Some are completely oblivious that what they just did was rude or inconsiderate or have little to no knowledge of the COLREG's. They just didn't know any better because of their lack of experience on the water. I try to give them the benefit of the doubt that it was not intentional rudeness. In most cases I don't think it was intentional. I think that people on the water are generally good to each other with a relatively rare number of "me first and screw you" type of people out there.

[Tallswede]

A situation I run into quite often in the ICW is power boaters who are trying to be courteous slowing down as they pass you and making their wakes much bigger. Often, I would prefer they keep up their speed to reduce the wake of a planing hull. They will almost never drop down to hull speed as they pass, most boats being just as slow or slower than mine at displacement speeds. Also, most never monitor VHF radio so we can talk, about the only power boaters on the VHF are tug Captains and some trawler types.

Kevin

[Greatketch33]

I easily compare motorboats and sailboats to cars and trucks. It's often that we see cars anxiously negotiating their speed to maneuver in front of a truck, after all, "who wants to be behind a slow moving vehicle?"

The same behavior appears to exist on my local lake on the water. No matter how close a sailboat is to the inlet of the marina, -- could be within 10feet as an example -- there is at least one motorboat moving at full throttle from 3 miles away negotiating his chance of squeezing in front of the sailboat in order to be their first.

[Richard_W]

Originally Posted by Tallswede

A situation I run into quite often in the ICW is power boaters who are trying to be courteous slowing down as they pass you and making their wakes much bigger. Often, I would prefer they keep up their speed to reduce the wake of a planing hull.

I meant to say this before but was not sure of the perception on the other side. My gut feeling was to keep going at planing speed as far away from the other boat as possible, rather than swamp them and my stern with the deceleration wake which is a nasty disturbed mass of water. Glad you mentioned this ...

[rgscpat]

Yes, when go-fast powerboats are in "plowing" mode "squatting" with their noses way up in the air in the no-man's land between displacement and planing speeds, they make a huge wake and their skippers have terribly poor visibility.

[Bash]

Originally Posted by Richard_W

It is impossible to avoid the wake without getting off plane into displacement mode which I would have to do every few minutes during the season and forget the weekends ... but then why bother operating planing boat. Being rolled is an connivance, my power boat is being rolled by bigger boats and ships as well ... especially by faster moving river cruise ships. I have to deal with their wake as well.

"Connivance"?? Really? That's got to be the most egregious* Freudian slip ever to come from a powerboater.

Connivance: n. Willingness to secretly allow or be involved in an immoral or illegal act.

(*Egregious: adj. shocking. outstandingly bad.)

Sheesh. So let me see if I have the argument straight here: I have to violate no-wake laws because I'm operating a planing boat, and since bigger, faster boats are rolling me, I get to roll you, despite the rule of law, because... "being rolled is an connivance."

[Richard_W]

Just a spellchecker overwrite and you make a story out of it already ... shees! You KNOW what I meant ... don't you?

If you read my previous posts you would see that I make it clear ... I adhere to a no wake zone regulation. You are very artful in taking things out of context to magnify the perceived wrongs ... a glass half empty in your life? Smile ...

BTW, a v-hull powerboat w/out mast rolls more than a sailboat with the mast and keel ... I should be one complaining here.

[markpierce]

Originally Posted by rgscpat

Yes, when go-fast powerboats are in "plowing" mode "squatting" with their noses way up in the air in the no-man's land between displacement and planing speeds, they make a huge wake and their skippers have terribly poor visibility.

Most of the worse wakes I've experienced are from motorboats over 40-feet in length going a bit over hull speed or a lot faster. Thirty-six knot ferryboats can be a bother as well as some tugboats.






Not much problem with ships, however.



Above, the tanker (several miles from its destination) and its guardian tugs are going slightly faster than my cruising speed of 6.3 knots.

[minaret]

Worst case of oblivious new powerboat owner I've seen? Fourth of July, 1997, in the huge anchoring ground off Gasworks Park in Lake Union. Hundreds of boats of all sizes, all anchored very close together to watch the fireworks display, a yearly event. A brand new Offshore 64, which I happened to have done some work on, cruised slowly right through the middle of the anchorage, picking up anchor lines as it went. There was a big crowd of people in fancy evening wear smiling and waving from all decks. It wasn't until they were dragging a cluster of half a dozen boats behind them and people started throwing beer bottles that they realized something was wrong. Of course the skippers response was to gun it out of there, dragging poor hapless drunks sawing at their anchor lines and screaming behind him. Priceless! Wish I had got that one on video...