Since you appear to be in the go fast category, why don't you explain to us how you overtake a displacement speed boat in a channel where there is no speed restriction. Lets say you want to overtake me between the Port Mayaca lock and the St Lucie lock on the Okeechobee water way. What should I expect when I see your express cruiser coming up behind me?
Ted
Much depends on the boat and I do know the behavior of each boat at various speeds, have a good picture in my mind of how far the wake extends. Then it depends on the location.
I will always attempt to advise by radio. Between Port Mayaca and St. Lucie is challenging and I would typically attempt to pass at about 3 knots faster than you were running. If I felt that might wake you then I'd encourage you to slow down so we could pass slower. There are several speed zones in that area too for bridges. I have slowly followed when no safe choice was there even when the slower boat was not responding in action or words. I won't double their wrong with one of my own.
Now, more common might be us in my wife's "Baby" and in the ICW in a non restricted area. Again we'd attempt to communicate. If a trawler was running anywhere other than the middle of the channel then we could take a wide sweep and pass at high speed with no wake reaching the trawler. In that boat, the faster we go, the less wake.
Now, in non-restricted areas we do not strive for no wake at all times. We do where possible but most of the time we're striving for a safe, reduced or minimal wake. That's also so much easier when we can reach the boat and they're prepared for it.
We have had boat owners react to appearance rather than reality, thinking we were going too fast when we looked back and saw the wake did not reach them at all.
I agree there are inconsiderate boaters. While sailboaters don't wake you, some do abuse others by acting like they own the waterway. I've on rare occasions encountered them tracking in the ICW.
We observe a lot from the balcony of our home as we live just outside a restricted area and it's amazing what we'll see with boats accelerating like the traffic light just turned green or decelerating like it turned red.
I have followed trawlers that wouldn't respond and would run from one side of the channel to the other. Had they cooperated better, we could have given them more clearance and less wake. Still we gave them a safe wake.
While I'm sure some boaters just don't care, I think many many boaters have no idea the wakes of their boats at different speeds. I've seen boats slow down "to be nice" and actually create their maximum wake as they were just below a planing speed.
An exercise I'd suggest for everyone if they haven't done so is to actually view your wake very carefully at different speeds and distances. 5 knots or 10 ft can change things significantly. Someone mentioned center consoles. Well, we own, although not for our personal use, a high performance center console with triple Yamaha 300's. It creates a horrible wake taking off and slowing down and very little wake at high speed. When a boater wants it to slow down, they probably don't realize that's the one thing that would wake them badly.
We go slow when law or conditions require it. We'll go as slow as needed to be safe for ourselves and others. We don't go slow just because others feel we all should.
Now on the other side, we've been waked just like everyone else. However, we came from a lake which on weekends was just solid wakes from all directions. There was no "no wake" other than specified locations like marinas. What can top a Wake Boat in terms of creating wake. We learned to be aware of our surroundings, to prepare for rough water, and to where possible take the wakes in the best way we could, but we also learned that we were going to get waked on weekends and holidays.
