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Old 08-27-2018, 02:16 PM   #11
Sabre602
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City: NW Washington State
Vessel Name: Kingfisher
Vessel Model: 37' converted gillnetter/crabber
Join Date: Oct 2017
Posts: 442
Yeah, it's certainly not isolated to this stretch of coast.

Is it me getting more curmudgeonly (my wife sometimes calls me "Gran Torino") or is it that there are actually more clueless, thoughtless boaters out there? I really do think that it's the latter, for one specific reason: technology. In the days of paper charts and coastwise piloting one really had to invest some time into learning how to get around by boat. LORAN sets helped the commercial fishermen but stayed pretty expensive for recreational boaters. The old transit SATNAV system was useless for near-shore work.

Ask that guy who is passing unsafely in his 75-foot Leviathan if he knows the difference between variation and declination and you'll either get a blank look or an "FU."

Not needing to invest the time and effort into learning proper piloting, he likewise has no interest in learning anything about the rules of the road or boater etiquette. Horn signals are meaningless to him, as are the uses of the various VHF channels. In the old days we would have called this guy a "yabbo" because he was merely clueless. Unfortunately, nowadays there is a meanness that has grown more widespread; rather than a yabbo he's now just an ordinary a$$hole.

Maybe I'll get a "Mean People Suck" sticker for my transom....
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