Observing Unsafe Boating

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Doesn't work for drivers licensing, what make you think it will work on the water?

:socool:

Blissboat said:
My four-plus decades on the water, mostly in Florida, have convinced me that vessel operator licensing with comprehensive, meaningful, mandatory boater education is the only solution. .
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Probably the most idiotic move I saw was at our MD marina. We have a slip located inside the t-head at the opposite end of the fuel dock. A local just took on fuel and was having trouble getting the engine to start. He pulled the boat to the end of the pier across from our slip where I was up top working. I heard him futzing around with the boat, and piqued my ears when I heard a high pitched whine of one of those 12V inflator pumps. The sound was completely out of context with what was going on with the non-starting boat, so I looked closer. The guy had the inflator in hand, running, with the nozzle inserted into the gas fill.

I intervened. It wasn't congenial. I yelled at him to shut off the pump as I got to the boat as quickly as I could move. I may have called him an idiot. Asked him if he's ever witnessed a boat explode or have a gasoline fire. Blank look...."You *DO* realize that the device you have stuffed into the gas fill is causing vapors to blow out the fill into the motor that has open brushes and sparks that could easily ignite those vapors??" He replied- 'Uh, I didn't think of that, I thought I could blow the gas into the engine.'... "Well if you want to blow yourself to kingdom come, I'd just as soon you do it far from here." I figure he earned the ire. Stupidity has its rewards.

After the initial flurry, I did settle down and explain the grave danger he had placed himself in- as well as all in proximity. And asked him please to call a mechanic to help him, or a towing service to get him back to his home marina, but please don't attempt your repairs on the fuel dock.
 
WesK said:
Since my marina is next to a busy public boat ramp and our dock faces it, we have seen most of the "stupid boat tricks" possible.

Jumping from a rocking boat to a rocking floating dock

Using hands and feet to fend of the boat (foot fenders)

Balancing on the trailer tongue while the trailer is being driven up the ramp

Feet hanging in the water when the boat is underway

Sitting on a swim platform with legs and feet in the water on a sterndrive that's underway

Untying all lines (and drifting away from the dock) before trying to start the engine

Inoperative running lights (at night)

Using docking lights as headlights while underway (at night)

And the classic alcohol use while boating
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I've see everyone of those antics here on Lake Lanier in Georgia. I tend to see it far less frequently in the oceans, thankfully.
 
BandB said:
This thread is started just for us to discuss as any of us observe any form of unsafe boating operation. What we observed? What we did if anything? What we should have done if anything? What we as a boating community at large can do? Is it lack of training and knowledge or just lack of good common sense? Are there ways to reduce loss of life on the water?
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I hate to say it, but when I lived in south Florida, if I had picked up the phone and reported every instance of unsafe boating I saw, I would been on a first name basis with the FWC and USCG in a week.

My answer was to practice superb situational awareness, and try and see them coming while they were at a safe enough distance that I could formulate a plan to not be injured by them. Kind of like going to New Orleans at night and watching for muggers.

Keysdisease said:
Being in South Florida and boating and being on the waterfront from Ft Lauderdale to Key West over the last 45 years I believe I have seen every possible unsafe boating act that doesn't involve ice outside a glass or cooler.

If I did anything about any of it I wouldn't have time for anything else.
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Word! Thankfully, I have never lived anywhere else that was a tenth as bad as south Florida.

Short of banning idiots from the water (and we can't seem to ban them from anywhere else) I don't know what you can do to fix it.
 
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BandB said:
That's sort of a basic of whether anyone should be allowed to pull a skier without a second person aboard watching the skier, facing back.
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There was an "observer" (that's the law in Ct) but the driver was also observing and not watching where he was going.
 
dhays said:
How about the other part of BanB's question? What have you done in response to the unsafe behavior witnessed? I certainly am looking for new ideas.
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I have talked to people doing unsafe acts around our marina but it usually falls on deaf ears.
Regarding the skier incident...honestly I was accelerating and trying to get out of range and after watching him fall 5 feet from my engine I was shaking too much to bother turning around. I was almost to the boat ramp to haul out. Plus I figured (and hoped) that the skier who almost died would be bitching out the driver.
 
WesK said:
Mandatory safe boating instruction and licensing for boaters would be a start but it's pretty difficult to tell someone who has been boating for thirty years that he has to take a class and pass a test to continue boating.
.
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Connecticut has had a mandatory class required for a boating certificate.....but it's not very comprehensive or effective from what I have seen.
I had the Power Squadron course many years ago and I learned to tie a bowline and how to plot a course, but no one ever mentioned not using your body as a fender, not to stand on a slippery platform while docking, etc.
You can't teach common sense or how to be courteous in a 16 hour course. LOL
 
David Hughes said:
I've see everyone of those antics here on Lake Lanier in Georgia. I tend to see it far less frequently in the oceans, thankfully.
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My experiences too. What I see on the coast is mild compared to the lake and Lake Lanier is about as bad as they come. It's like Lake Norman in one respect as the closest lake to a major metropolitan area. Just in Charlotte, we have two lakes for people to go crazy on.
 
jleonard said:
There was an "observer" (that's the law in Ct) but the driver was also observing and not watching where he was going.
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That's very common and i know the temptation. As a driver of a boat pulling a skier, you really want to watch and I conditioned myself to the fact that it wasn't my role and to never turn my head back. I would see some in the mirror but used it just as I always did to watch what was behind me. It's hard to overcome the temptation to watch the skier. Also, when I was very young, we didn't always have a person to watch. I think I was probably 17 or so when we changed.
 
I was a passenger aboard a Washington State Ferry recently, enroute from Anacortes, WA to Sidney BC with a stop at Friday Harbor. As the ferry turned into the channel between Shaw Island and the northern end of Lopez Island, an aluminum outboard fishing boat in the 20-24 foot range (common for fishing in the PNW) came from the direction of Shaw Island at a good speed, maybe 15-20 knots. It came directly at the bow of the ferry. The ferry sounded it's horn as the boat seemed to continue on the head-on course. The ferry increased the horns progressively as the boat closed until the eventual continual blast. All this time, the ferry was reducing speed and finally coming to a full stop ensured by full reverse power. The fishing boat came right at the bow of the ferry at, what appeared to be, full speed. There were clearly two men in the boat, though it had tinted windows in the canopy cover. At the very last moment, the boat veered off of a collision course, passing quite close along the length of the starboard side of the ferry and then sped off.
I was standing on the 2nd deck platform at the starboard corner of the bow and watched the entire episode. The occupants of this boat were sitting in the two seats in the fishing boat and I could easily see their silhouettes through the darkened plexiglas looking at the ferry. It was clear they were playing chicken, or something similar. Maybe the owner said to his guest "watch this. I can stop a ferry".
It was a pathetic example of childishness, and lack of concern for one's fellow men, women and children.
 
Salty, if you've ever driven a car in South Florida you wouldn't need to ask that question.

:socool:

QUOTE=SaltyDawg86;578150 Not sure how you figure that.....

Originally Posted by Keysdisease

Doesn't work for drivers licensing, what make you think it will work on the water?

:socool:










As far as Darwinism, what happens when you're hit and killed by some idiot but the idiot walks away?[/QUOTE]
 
The Other Gary said:
We spent a lazy day at the mooring wall of the Toronto Islands today. About 8 pm the wind started to pick up so we decided to leave and motor through the harbor and then on home about 20 nm. I figured I would have to tuck in close to the north shore to find calmer water. As we cruised the harbor I heard a coast guard message that a boat had broken down off Ashbridges Bay and was seeking assistance. SeaTow responded that they were enroute. After leaving Toronto harbor I cleared the headland and moved in close to shore to travel east to our home port. The wind had really picked up from the north and the sun had set. From the flybridge I noticed a blinking light about a mile further offshore from us. As I watched I realized it was 3 short, 3 long and 3 short being repeated. We decided to check it out and it was the boat reported by the Coast Guard message. I approached them and got them in my lee to find 7 persons, 3 adult males, 2 women and 2 children aboard a broken down boat they had just bought. I got the women and kids aboard and Arlene looked after them in the salon then towed the boat with the men still aboard into Ashbridges Bay where they had launched. SeaTow was still an hour and a half away and these people were being blown offshore towards Rochester. While underway I contacted the Marine Police to report the finding and tow and then closed it out with them when I finished dropping them off.
After dropping them off with a warning to get the boat looked at and to check out the filters and all we motored home on a lovely windy night feeling that we had at least saved them an uncomfortable few hours of worry. Arlene was excellent at the controls keeping the swim platform right next to their boat while I transferred the ladies and children and then she served tea in the salon while I did the tow. Teamwork.
I would not want to be those guys later on that night.
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Nice! Well done.
 
So because south fla sucks, the entire country is broken?

2 weeks ago I was coming into Tampa, 525 ft long, 75 ft wide, 21-6 draft and a group of kayaks are crossing the channel.... 1 turtles dead ahead of me about 3/4 of a mile away. Lucky for me he got back in and out the way.

Not even 15 minutes before that, a pontoon boat in a rush to get to the beach cuts my bow so close, I can't see him. Imagine if his single engine would have stalled....

The week before that, I'm coming out of Big Bend in Tampa and a center console loaded with a family stops in the middle of the channel, 75 yards off my bow so he can set up his approach to Beer Can Island. I have plenty of stupid stories, but those are from just 1 hitch. Notice the common theme, average people who can go out and buy a boat with know knowledge and no idea how to read their surroundings.

I'm all for everyone having a USCG license. Let's go further.... Renew every 5 years, full physicals and drug tests as well. Pay to play and get some stupidity off the water.
 
Keysdisease said:
Salty, if you've ever driven a car in South Florida you wouldn't need to ask that question.
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Ain't that the truth. I was driving to work one day, in bumper to bumper traffic on Pine Rd. (no one going over 10 mph) and a lady managed to put her SUV on it's side. I still can't figure how she did it. :D
 
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"Connecticut has had a mandatory class required for a boating certificate.....but it's not very comprehensive or effective from what I have seen."

We can not register our boat in CT, as even with my USCG 100Ton ticket I would have to sit thru this course!
 
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