Thread: Pay Back Time?
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Old 11-03-2012, 01:35 AM   #52
Marin
Scraping Paint
 
City: -
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 13,745
Quote:
Originally Posted by psneeld View Post

My motto... being a good seaman means you are responsible for EXPECTING a wake at any time and being prepared. While they may be uncomfortable...they should not be damaging or dangerous....or you need to buy a different boat...
That pretty much sums it up in my opinion. While the legalities can be debated ad infinitum they won't change the actual situations you encounter. One of the requirements of the Colregs is that each vessel keep a proper lookout. To me, that means looking over your shoulder regularly to see what's coming up from behind. Or using the radar to show you overtaking traffic that you can then turn around and look at, visibility permitting.

While never say never I cannot recall any time when we have been surprised by a wake. We've had to deal with our share of big ones, particularly from the big semi-planing boats mushing through the water at 15 or 20 knots. But we regularly check behind us, we have the radar going all the time and actually look at it fairly frequently to see what's what out there. So while we've been seriously pissed off on occasion by the inconsiderate bozo who insists on passing us at speed a few boat lengths away, we've always seen them coming and been ready to deal with the wake.

And like RTF's earlier post, we assume we'll get waked at some point so we plan accordingly with things like coffee cups, plates, binoculars, cameras, etc.

I think a major part of being good at boating (or flying or driving or......) is having the ability to anticipate the consequences of something happening. "If I put that there and we get nailed by a wake, it's going to hit the floor or spill all over my camera." So you put it somewhere where that won't happen.

I continue to be surprised by how many people don't seem to have that anticipatory ability.
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