Sailin' folk is good folks...

Come to the lakes of NC, the jetskiers grow up and actually use powerboats to run you over.

Glad you had a great time... welcome to the dark side

i doubt there is a person on this forum that hasn't been cut off or run over by a powerboater or jetski. it usually goes like this : some big fat jackass with a beer in his hand...

My collegue got run over by a surfboard. The guy T-boned his cat at full speed while trying to jump through the mainsail.

If only people learned the right of way rules, and that includes windsurfers

Wouter

I was slammed into by a jetski doing over 40mph. I will post the pictures over the weekend.

You're very welcome - you got me out of the house and sailing, so I should thank you!

Seriously, I had a blast, and it was great meeting you. I hope you have a safe trip.

Michael Coffman

T4.9#32

P.S. - sorry about the jetskier 😉

lets not get into the habit of apologizing for the stupidity of powerboaters and jetskiers.

Let us not forget that in the 1970's during the height of Hobie mania, when cats were being bought like hotcakes by people who didn't have a clue about sailing or about rules of the road, beachcats were subjected to the same kind of badmouthing and bad press that PWC's are getting today. Dealers and fleets and the Hobie Hotline did their best to educate these thousands of brand-new sailors, but there were a lot of unfortunate incidents on the water that gave beachcatters a bad reputation. We have come a long way. We can hope that the same will be true of PWC's, thanks to all the pressure that has been brought to bear on the manufacturers. But we have to be aware that if government regulations are applied to control one type of watercraft, they can also be applied to another -- LIKE US!

i made a point of learning the rules of the "road" when i began operating watercraft (first a powerboat, then a sailboard, then sailboats). i know the rules and i follow them. i agree that the rules apply to us all. i don't think we need more regulations, just enforcement of the ones we have. i wonder how many powerboaters can say that they have been cut off or run into by a sailboat when the sailboat was a fault?

Hi,

Okay, flame suit on....

you wrote

"...i wonder how many powerboaters can say that they have been cut off or run into by a sailboat when the sailboat was a fault? "

Darn few, I'd guess...

I'm sitting here trying to think of cirucmstances *that occur often enough to merit discussion* in which a powerboater and a sailboat *under sail* can interact negatively with the fault being that of the sailboat.

Vessel in tow? Vessal at anchor? Disabled, drifting wrecked powercraft? Okay, but all of those, while being technically "rules of the road" issues, are so blamed obvious that for a sailboat to hit one of them requires more than simple ignorance of the rules.... these incidents rise to the level of agravated indifference to reality, posibly drug induced. Such behavior rises above the whole power/sail issue entirely.

Other than that, the only way I know of to be at fault when you cut off or run into a power boat with your sailboat under sail is to run up his transom, which I suppose is possible in a cat

while sailing, I have never been hit by anything but other cats! I think that's a far more common occurrence than PWCs hitting cats...

I take that back... PU did hit me with a fish once...

On the Chesapeake there seems to be a long standing riff between the "blow-boats" and "stink-pots". No love lost between the two groups for the most part. If you ask that question of the die hard powerboaters around here you're likely to hear lots of stories of sailboaters at fault or being horribly inconsiderate. All a matter of perspective, I suppose.

I can offer a handful of stories of dangerous incidents for both power and pwc. I often wonder what their side of the stories are...

Keith:

Speaking as a person that has sailed both on the bay and on the budweiser-powered lakes of the south, I have to say that it is 1000x worse down here. I'd sail on the bay anyday, infested with nettles and all!

It does not matter who is in the right if you make other people angry. What causes problems is that some sailors think sailing vessels always have right-of-way over powerboats, which is not always true, (please imagine here a cartoon of a sailboat hailing "starboard" to a cruise ship). Just an exaggeration, but we were at a regatta once at Muskegon, Michigan and all the sailboats were berthed inside the bay and had to tack out through a pretty narrow channel to get out to Lake Michigan for the races. This was extremely annoying to the powerboaters trying to come in through that same channel, wearing out their transmissions trying to stop, back up, whatever, to avoid these erratic sailboats. And some of them were as nasty to us as we are to Waverunners and threatened to just run us over. And we, of course, were angry at them for their barge-on-through, big-boat-has-right-of-way attitudes. (But in a lot of cases the "big boats" are right.)

All this is totally off the thread of the original post. I think it would be good to have a thread about this whole subject of the problems of powerboats and PWC's vis-a-vis sailboats. More education is needed for both sailboaters and powerboaters, concerning the problems and needs of both.

Screw that. I've got a better lawyer 😛

You win. All I have is a yellow-and-white stuffed rabbit.

This is what a drunk jetskier did to my then brand new I20.

See attached.

i agree. you can't go around intentionally pissing people off. on the other hand, the rules of the road say that as the boat with the right of way, i must hold my course until i am sure that a collision is imminent. if i change course and a collision occurs i am at least partially responsible. the rules are set up to make boating safe. they are quite clear as to who has right of way and who must yield. we may be a bit off saying that powerboaters are terrible, but as a sailor, i don't usually run across limited maneuvaribility boats (trawlers, cruise boats...). i do yield when the rules state that i must, but yielding when you have the right of way is just as dangerous as not yielding when you must. how many times have you heard of the car driver that got into an accident because while they were waiting at a stop sign a car going the other way stopped to let them in and they were hit by a third car? the same happens in boating. as i stated before, i know the rules and i follow them. is it too much to ask that the other boaters (notice i said boaters and not powerboaters) also follow the rules?

by the way, the original post mentioned the waverunner that lead us to where we are..

Of course you're right, Mary,

... And I do watch for boats appearing to need avoiding, and I do in fact avoid them, toss off a dirty look or a whistle, and then forget about it and go back to enjoying my sail. I didn't mean to sound like an advocate for beer-boob-boat-baiting.

...and of course I agree whole heartedly with the provision I seem to recall which I think says that all vessals must take evasive actions to avoid imminent collision even if they have the right of way.

So I guess I was wrong, since all vessals must try to avoid collision when it's imminent, then yes, power boats can be hit by a sailboat when the sail boat is at fault, in the sense that after a powerboat's failure to yield makes collision imminent, if the sailboat knowingly hits him, or negligently fails to avoid then the sailboat is also at fault.

i don't think i could have said it better... only a bit sooner. you know where i stand on this issue.

Ok, some power boat folk is good folks too.

But lemme paint the picture of the other day. Michael and I are one of only 2 boats in sight on a large intracoastal bay. On the horizon can be seen a small dot, the PWC. It comes from the horizon directly toward us (minding our own business) and buzzes within 15 feet, arcing his path so as to throw spray on us. Then he circled back around just to do donuts directly in front of us. This was an unprovoked ATTACK, not a conflict in understanding boat right of way rules.

This was ingorant pig behavior. It had nothing to do with understanding or not understanding the rules of the road. It has nothing to being an arrogant sailor demanding right of way. Heck, we had several SQUARE MILES of water to share with this single other craft. Sure, I've been in tight docking or channel situations with other boats. I know tempers can get short. Those situations are different.

If it's any consolation to the Inter 20....I used to work at a power boat marina and helped repair a power boat that had a huge hole in the side from being t-boned by PWC.

I don't see this as a power vs sail issue. It is larger than boating. The issue is etiquette in general. How we treat others and expect to be treated. The ol' golden rule thing.

Doesn't a powered vessel that needs to stay in the channel due to draft have right of way in the channel? If so there's another, and often occuring, situation where power has right of way over sail. A 30' power cruiser may have a 4' draft when not on plane which is usually the case coming into a harbor. One thing I find myself guilty of is passing too close to other boats, be it monohulls, boats that are fishing etc. Plan early and it takes very little deflection or an earlier or later tack and all is well.

We are lucky where we sail in that there is sailboat racing on four to five days per week and the local powerboaters are for the most part fantastic. Most often they will cut or reverse power and signal us to pass ahead. Many an assist for dismasting, capsize or sinking.

A recent incident, which we laugh about now, was at the CRAC Lighthouse Race last weekend. Just as the gun went off a LARGE monohull (sail) was under power passing through the starting line in the direction opposite to ours. I'm sure as he approached he was at ease seeing a bunch of cats parked and we were concentrating on the start. Well as the start sounded these cats accelarated like scalded dogs. The poor guys eye balls blew up like bowling balls and he panicked, turning to avoid us. Of course once he started turning things got interesting real quick. Being racers our reaction, those real close, was to yell head up, head up. He continued his turn and our boats bore off until everybody was happy and going the same way. We lost some height on the layline and some boat lengths but no hard feelings.

Barry,

wow,..what a picture,....nice yellow color though.

Did you fix it,.....get new hull,...?

You all should come down here,....very few jetskis,.

..too much wind and waves,.......they stay inside the reef,...

...in fact,..that waves are such that most powerboats under 30' just cruise by,......it is those MegaYacht things that get in the way down here,....

..

In the 2001 BVI spring regatta,...a particularly huge one ( with a helicopter or 2 , you know the type),....went thru the course ( of course),......the waves were square after that for about an hour.....

Bruce

St. Croix.

generally, limited maneuvaribility refers to large commercial boats that take a long time to stop or are difficult to turn. a 30' power cruiser does not fall into this category.a 30' power cruiser that has to stay in the channel can still slow down or speed up. that is what a transmission is made to do. your car does it every time you drive it. we are not just talking about rules of the road now, we are talking about consideration of other people. i had some idiot behind me leaning on his horn because i wasn't sailing fast enough for him. what does leaning on the horn do besides piss me off.

i know we aren't supposed to advertise here, but i have invented a shotgun mount that attaches to the bridle (under the forestay) and the mast. it comes with a trigger extension that attaches to the tiller so that it can be operated while driving the boat. would anybody be interested in purchasing one of these great devices? there is a discount for purchases of ten or more, and right now, they come with a rebate for a box of 50 rounds of winchester ammunition.