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sanibel sailor · 29-12-2019, 16:03

I sail off Ft Myers Beach in Florida. Plenty of tourists, especially at this time of year. Tourists draw parasail boats like buzzards to roadkill. Parasailing is where they launch the nice people from Wisconsin or Minnesota on a parachute tethered behind a small powerboat. I generally try to stay away from them and our race committee typically lays out our course clear of their preferred operating area. Usually, we stay away from them, and they stay away from us. Plenty of room. Everyone's happy.

I have had a couple of incidents. Once, a couple of years ago, another boat and I were racing on parallel course, hard on the wind, headed for the mark. A parasail boat was retrieving their flyer and having got them aboard stopped directly in out path, about 150 yards ahead. I expected them to move and maintained course. As we got within hailing range they proclaimed they were "restricted in ability to maneuver". Their chute was flying but on a 20 foot tether with no one on it. Neither the other racer nor I changed course so they hit the gas and rapidly got out of the way with plenty of room to spare. Didn't seem very restricted after all.
One incident, maybe in retrospect I should have been less stubborn, but I didn't make much of it.

Until today. I am sailing close hauled again and one of these boats crosses my path with a passenger aloft. It was an unfamiliar boat, maybe they are new around here. I head down to keep clear. Probably have 100 feet of clearance but it's like going under a tall bridge, no sense of how close it is, and I don't want to damage the Windex. Once clear, I resume course. As I pass under the parachute, the boat alters course parallel to mine to keep them aloft more or less directly overhead. Kept them there for several hundred yards. I suppose if the tether parts, they would descend off to leeward but sure seemed like a stupid way to provide entertainment.