Jet skier observations

[sandcraft]

Most of my recreational boating has been with 18-21 foot boats mostly jet, a few bass boats. The few altercations I had was with kids acting like kids regardless of what they were driving. (mostly jet skis)

After moving into the larger high performance craft, I noticed that the frequency of being forced to make drastic course corrections or coming off the throttle to avoid jetskiers (and some boats) has increased noticably. What gives?

It seems like my 18' 50mph jet boat was given more leeway than my 32' 80 mph nordic. On two separate occasions, jetskiers have cut right in front of me, rules of the road be damned. Its like they were trying to beat the train to the crossing.

I hate to jump on the jetski hater bandwagon as everyone should be respected to enjoy the water with whatever means they choose. This high performance boat VS jetskis thing actually seems to have some merit. I used to think people were being snobish toward these smaller watercraft but after my first summer with my 32', I guess I was wrong.

Just my .02

[Croozin2]

Most of my recreational boating has been with 18-21 foot boats mostly jet, a few bass boats. The few altercations I had was with kids acting like kids regardless of what they were driving. (mostly jet skis)

After moving into the larger high performance craft, I noticed that the frequency of being forced to make drastic course corrections or coming off the throttle to avoid jetskiers (and some boats) has increased noticably. What gives?

It seems like my 18' 50mph jet boat was given more leeway than my 32' 80 mph nordic. On two separate occasions, jetskiers have cut right in front of me, rules of the road be damned. Its like they were trying to beat the train to the crossing.

I hate to jump on the jetski hater bandwagon as everyone should be respected to enjoy the water with whatever means they choose. This high performance boat VS jetskis thing actually seems to have some merit. I used to think people were being snobish toward these smaller watercraft but after my first summer with my 32', I guess I was wrong.

Just my .02

Sand, it's not only jet skis. It just seems that there is a general lack of respect and awareness on the water, period. I've had ski boats towing wake boarders turn right in front of me, too. We have a very narrow channel that leads from our river out to Lake Maurepas. It seems at least once each time we take the boat out, someone will be stopped in the middle of that marked channel with boat traffic trying to get out to or in from the lake (anything from party barges to 50'+ cruisers). When you mention that they might not want to be stopped in the main channel they look at you like you're the arsehole.

As you have found out, it's not a snobbish attitude on our part as much as it is a fear of running over someone who either isn't paying attention, doesn't know any better or doesn't give a damn. It just aggravates the **** out of me.

OK, I'm done venting!

[Donman]

Had a VERY close call with a SeaDoo yesterday. An adult female in her 30`s, was just not paying attention to her surroundings.
We were in a Baja 232.
She rode right into our path --- then stopped . . .

[sleeper_dave]

I don't understand the fascination with jumping wakes on sea-doos. We were coming down the Detroit River yesterday in my dad's boat (big cruiser pushing a big wake) and we had a bunch of kids on jet skis screwing around jumping wakes. Most of them were too close to us to be legal.

They all seem to have big new 800-lb machines, too. They hardly even get any air. If they want to jump wakes, they should go buy older sea-doos that weigh half as much, or better yet, stand-up machines.

I like to ride PWC's... but jumping wakes really doesn't have much appeal for me. I like cruising around the lake, checking out shallow areas where I couldn't get a big boat, and being able to go places for a lot less gas $$ than I could with a bigger boat. Getting beat up on boat wakes does not sound like the fun part.

[tblrklakemo]

I will chime in here. I love riding jet skis behind huge cruisers, at a safe distance, and getting huge air. Its very fun. But I boat much more often and I have seen my fair share of jet ski idiots turn right in front of me w/o looking to see if there is a boat behind them too. Tubers and skiers also seem to pull in front of me and take drastic moves that compromise my saftey. What pisses me off is these people like to drag people into a bottle neck area and stop...thereby forcing all other boaters to come off plane.

[cbeastwood]

I agree with tblrrklkakmemo, if you stay a safe distance behind the cruiser, wake jumping can be fun. Also, I had to come off plane numerous times this weekend - tubers in the middle of the river, boaters on the wrong side of the river, a couple of cruisers running just far enough apart not to allow faster boats to pass, etc. Needless to say, it was a frustrating weekend, but they'll be the first to blame the 'cigarette' boats when there's a problem...

[big red]

This past saturday we too were cut off by a waverunner. kids in their 20's didn't look our way. We cut hard right to avoid hitting them. This threw my 11 yr son to the floor & hit his head. I called DNR on channel 16, the call was answered by Coast gaurd auxillary, said to handle the situation by ourselves it was after hours. I called 911 met them at the ramp with the waverunners, cop said not his job. nothing was ever done even though they cause injury to my son.

[Mercury_Challenger]

Here on Lake Gaston its getting the same way, age has nothing to do with it either......its a simple ....... "I don't know any better cause I haven't owned any watercraft in my life" kinda rule. INEXPERIENCE is the word we are looking at, and it sucks majorly. Just this past weekend I had an incident or close call with a mid 30 year old female who also turned right into my path and stoped, never even saw me, ignored the horn and when I was steering left to avoid her she finally sees me and gasses it, right into my path again. I was doing everything I could to stop and avoid her, only missing hitting her broad in the side by a foot or less. Until the states crack down and make EVERYONE buying a boat or PWC to take a safety class we will be plagued with these idiots, some of them even after attending the safety class will act the same. The problem here is the fact that for year after year we only had decent boaters riding our lake, folks that had been on the water forever, folks that respected the water, folks that you knew on a first name basis......then the lake started to develope and folks from every kind of society started to move in, folks that had money but no boating knowledge. Then you can thank folks like bayliner and the other cheap boat builders that build a low cost boat that any idiot can afford, this makes it bad also........cause the idiots that buy them don't know any safe boating skills either. I do it all from PWC to boating here, I try to be safe at all times. Then we have gramps in the pontoon boat that thinks he can beat a 500HP performance boat to the crossings. Folks just don't care anymore, they think they own the stretch of water they are riding on, reguardless of what they are operating. I see it all the time here......folks towing tubes loaded with people under bridges, through no-wake zones, towing them right up the marina to get fuel when there is 20 other boats out there waiting in line to get fuel. I had a guy this weekend to come down our cove on a mastercraft ski boat running about WOT, one of the new wake boat models, it threw a wake so big it pushed my boat right into the dock where we had a few exiting the boat, the cove is only about 25 foot wide and 6 foot deep at this point. No damage to mine......but I let him know what a wake was I left the dock. Call it being a ***** if ya wanna, but I call it lesson learned.

[tblrklakemo]

I almost always forsee a problem when I observe a jet ski person traveling in front of me. They always make eratic turns w/o looking to see who might be behind or beside them. I never see them turn around and just observe whats going on around them. Idiot tubers are another breed of moron.

[baywatch]

I'll jump on this one as well. Shoot out weekend Saturday at LOTO I came very close to seriously hurting some idiot on a Jet Ski at approximately the 14mm. I was traveling up stream and he was as well he was in front of me to my Port and made a total 90 degree turn to go for the wake of a large cruiser.

When I first noticed him he was slightly in front of me and about two hundred yards to my left close to shore. I was running approximately 4,000rpms (low to mid 50's) in my 36' Apache.

I could see the idiot coming closer and closer to my course so I began to back the throttles down and once I am down to 2400rpms (minimum planing speeed without tabs) the idiot turns litterally into me as he airs off of a large cruiser wake that I am also trying to navigate now at a slow speed. I Yell to my wife to hold onto our 17month old son and proceed to throttle hard as I turn my boat as hard to the right as I safely can to avoid the collision.

The Jet ski flies through the air and misses my bow by appoximately 6-10' At this point I have totally shut down to idle and am catching my breath. Now the idiot realizes how close he was to hitting me and waves. I proceed to wave him over and let him know how lucky he is that he is splattered into the side of my boat. If I would not have made a 90 degree turn the jet ski would have flown right into the bow of our boat.

I choose not to drink when boating and I know for a fact that if I would have had anything to drink that day there is a very good chance that my reaction time and my reflexes wouldn't have been good enough to react to this idiot making a 90 degree turn into me. I actually said to my wife that that kid is very lucky I don't drink or I wouldn't have even noticed him until it was too late.

This guy was like in a trance just going for this stupid wake totally oblivious to all that was around him. There were also other boats that narrowly missed him and that I had to be very careful to avoid with my quick maneuver. Other boats were flipping the guy the bird because they witnessed the whole event.

I was always cautious around jet skis but now I go as far from them as possible!!