BS: Boating People

Subject: BS: Boating People
From: olddude
Date: 12 Jul 13 - 05:22 PM

any of you guys own a boat. My observation living on Lake Erie is there are two types. Those very knowledgeable and those that are careless. Today I was fishing (again) Big hard East wind. I never caught a fish nor have a known anyone who ever caught a fish on a Lake Erie east wind on my side of the lake. They just won't bite and hold up. Well out in the lake I can see the waves pounding over the break wall. Next thing I see this guy in the 15 ft boat launching his boat next to me at the boat launch. I said ... pretty rough out there are you sure you want to go out in that. "Oh I been in worse" Now he can't get his engine to start and when he finally does, it spurts and sputters then off he goes.

As he left I could not help doing a Quint from Jaws "Farewell Lorna Doone da da da da da da da"

Subject: RE: BS: Boating People
From: Fossil
Date: 12 Jul 13 - 08:16 PM

Same thing happens here in NZ. I live near Wellington, one of the windiest places in the world and sail my little red trailer-sailer on Wellington Harbour (Harbor?) when it's not too bad. Sometimes it's not only "not too bad", but a really beautiful day's sailing can be had.

Every year there are boating fatalities in Wellington. Always the same chain of events. Failure to prepare the boat properly. Failure to read the weather conditions, or to bother getting a forecast. Not having life jackets for everyone on board. Not having a VHF on board, or flares.

In one case, a party of six crammed into a small tinny boat, not one life jacket between the lot of them. The party included a 68-year old obese woman and a six-month old baby. Fortunately, they were all rescued in time by nearby boaties when their vessel went down, but it could have been a very different story.

There is lots of advice available, but not everyone who has access to the water seems to read it or understand it. I did use to try to talk to people I saw going out unprepared, but having received a number of rather short answers, these days I tend to adopt the Larry Niven approach; "think of it as evolution in action" and leave them the hell alone.

Subject: RE: BS: Boating People
From: olddude
Date: 12 Jul 13 - 08:29 PM

We just had a 17 year old drown last week. very sad. Lake Erie can get terrible with monster waves. It is so shallow for a great lake and kicks up in a moment

Subject: RE: BS: Boating People
From: EBarnacle
Date: 12 Jul 13 - 08:29 PM

Regrettably, too many of them breed before they kill themselves off. There are old sailors and bold sailors but very few old, bp;d sailors.

Subject: RE: BS: Boating People
From: EBarnacle
Date: 12 Jul 13 - 08:31 PM

Oops, that should have been "bold sailors."

Subject: RE: BS: Boating People
From: olddude
Date: 12 Jul 13 - 08:41 PM

Fossil
I am jealous, I always wanted to live in NZ such a beautiful place it takes ones breath away.

Subject: RE: BS: Boating People
From: olddude
Date: 12 Jul 13 - 08:44 PM

And the problem is, they get into trouble and guys like Kendall have to risk their lives trying to rescue them. I bet Captain has more than a few stories for sure

Subject: RE: BS: Boating People
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 13 Jul 13 - 05:36 AM

I used my dad's 18 foot ocean going skiff with a 20 horse Evenrude like a bicycle fom 15 to 18 years old and went on the North Atlantic with my friends in their boats many times.

I'm confident on a boat in most lakes and on the atlantic, even Lake Ontario. I would no make any or the errors ath fossil mentioned. But If I ever venture on lake Erie, I'll talk to a local first.

Subject: RE: BS: Boating People
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 13 Jul 13 - 08:16 AM

I did all my time on the Atlantic ocean, but the fact is, the great lakes are far more dangerous. In 4 years I only saw one number 9 sea, but, I hear they are common on the lakes, especially in November.

Too many men think they can handle a boat without any experience. They just have to show off.

Subject: RE: BS: Boating People
From: Bert
Date: 13 Jul 13 - 10:30 AM

When we were in Alabama, our neighbors went out on the lake in the middle of a thunderstorm in an aluminum pontoon boat with an umbrella up.

They were lucky.

Subject: RE: BS: Boating People
From: GUEST,olddude
Date: 13 Jul 13 - 11:40 AM

I see a lot of tourists launching bass boats in Lake Erie. The water can be like glass for a couple of hours, but if the wind picks up .. you are in it deep. Now if they want to bass fish in the bay no problem but they go out 4 or 5 miles looking for Walleye ... can we say stupid .. that boat was never designed to handle the great lakes. I been out there in a 52 ft crew boat with my diving friend Jim who runs shipwreck diving only to have the wind pick up .. puked my guts out and we were in a big ass boat. Me I fish from the dock or shore .. I don't go out there anymore

Subject: RE: BS: Boating People
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Jul 13 - 01:03 PM

I had a 16 ft modifed V alumin(i)um Starcraft with a little bitty (30 HP) outboard on it for several years and did quite a lot of fishing in Kansas lakes and creeks.

Nearly all the lakes here are Corps of Engineers "manufactured" ones, made by daming small streams, so they tend not to be large - although some are a lot deeper than you'd expect. And we have lots more of them than most would think.

The biggest nearby one was at Cheney, that covered lots of acreage but had long flat shallow "shelf" shorelines, and with typical winds around 35 mph the backflow/undertow when the water rolled back off the long shallows made for some pretty good "rollers." A couple of times I could stand up while running in the trough and couldn't see over the top of the waves on either side.

One particular day I'd been out on Cheney for about an hour when some guy set about launching his boat. There was lots of noise and commotion for about 20 or 30 minutes, then silence for about an hour, followed by the "Johnny Pop" coming down the road from the nearby farm to pull him out of the mud.

Another hour later - same story.

Four times that day. Each of them would stand there on the bank after they got pulled out, scratchin' their heads and glaring at me wonderin' "How the $#%@^ did he get that boat in there?"

The lake had a couple of concrete "boat ramps" but they were only about 20 ft long, and the waterline moved in and out by more than that depending on how much rain there'd been. That day the water was about 6 or 8 ft short of coming to the ramp, so when they backed down their hind wheels went off the ramp into the mud. No way out.

I had a trailer ball on the front of my VW Beetle, so I could inch down frontwise and keep the back wheels (or usually all 4) on the ramp.

I'd also rigged a couple of cable pulleys (off a garage door opener) on the trailer so I could run the winch cable under the boat, around the back roller, and back to the front of the boat, to winch it off the trailer. With a 16 ft boat, a 22 ft trailer, I could "throw the boat" into the water about 30 feet out from the end of the ramp where it floated enough to unhook and tie it up afloat - without getting the Bug into any of the mud.

Of course with the mud banks, getting out just meant running up onto the bank and winching the boat across the mud/sand onto the trailer.

I've never had a tow vehicle, when I had a trailer to pull with it, that didn't have a trailer ball on both ends. Highly recommended. The "nose ball" doesn't have to be "highway grade," but makes maneuvering into a tight storage space a whole lot easier.

The boat trailer mod was a little extra, but it was really handy lots of places with muddy banks and shallow shoreline water, but of course you'd have to get really fancy to do something similar for a larger boat.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Boating People
From: Bert
Date: 13 Jul 13 - 01:48 PM

Many years ago I was down at Rye. We were going fishing and had rented a stern trawler for the day.

There we were, half a dozen scruffy guys with our fishing gear. I guess the captain was waiting for the tide 'cos there were several other boats waiting as well.

This fancy car arrives at the boat ramp and they launch a really expensive looking speed boat down the ramp. In climb a couple of guys and a couple of good looking gals, all scantily clad.

They were putting on airs a bit and everyone was watching them.

They went roaring off at high speed with complete disregard of the No Wake laws.

They did a full circle up stream showing off their boat. As they completed their circle they came around across the boat ramp.

There was a huge crash as their outboard hit the concrete boat ramp.

In complete silence, with all eyes watching, they drifted slowly down stream.

Subject: RE: BS: Boating People
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Jul 13 - 09:49 PM

The Cheney Lake I mentioned was sort of a low spot in some farmland, and they threw some dirt in the creek to stop it up and made a lake out of it. They did very little other "preparatory work" other than to knock on the doors at a couple of barns to make sure they were empty.

Several times I found a "fence post" about half a foot under the surface when my sonar said I was in 28 ft of water. It was actually a telephone pole, that took close to 20 years to get rotten enough that somebody knocked a few feet off the top of it.

There was also a railroad track running across the lake. Salvage value of the rails would have been enough to pay for pulling them out, but they left them where they were until, soon after the lake was pretty well filled, they removed them where they came out of the water so you couldn't tell where the submerged ones were.

Quite a few fancy boats lost the lower end of their outboards on the tracks - but it was in the Fish & Game half of the lake where the "no visible wake" rule applied, so complaints got the standard "Tough Sh*t A*Hole" reply. The Parks and Recreation half had more liberal rules, and allowed about anything but skinny-dippin'.

John