LaughingCat

Tell me if I am the only person who dreads coming into the General Discussion section on Mondays for fear of another boating accident thread. It used to be Cats flipping. Now it seems like driver errors are trickling down to the moderate boats.

How does a cruiser run over a sailboat? There is a level of attentiveness one must exercise. You set the cruise control so you can make sweet love to your wife (insert: girlfriend, wife and girlfriend, girlfriend and her nasty roommate, etc), not go down below for a game of "Hide in the Bilge".

For those of you not familiar with how to do this, Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee made an excellent how-to video. They provide a step by step process for navigating a large vessel at safe speeds while delivering 'Ole One-Eyed Willy to the Optometrist. He even shows you how to let Willy honk the horn. It's a fascinating documentary.

Anyway, we are dangerously close to starting a new section called "The Latest Accident and How It'll Effect Our Insurance."

Thoughts

RollWithIt

Im sure there is alot of alcohol induced mishaps. I think its mora a case that information is easily obtained on the internet now.

BlackJack58

A lot of the problems lately seem to involve boating at night. What is it with people hurtling through the dark, up on plane? It's just not safe - even if you are familiar with the local waters...

What - do a few beers give some of these folks "night vision?"
Or so they thought. Even stone cold sober - it's just not safe.

RollWithIt

I'll admit. Ive done my fare share of stupid stuff over the years including running wot at night. But, luckily, never had any incidents doing that. Now, at night, I wont go past half throttle on my boat, which is only about 30 mph. Just too many things to hit, especially when running on a river.

LaughingCat

In my single days, iadmit to running a WOT Cigarette through narrow channels during a thunderstorm. The assumption was that no one else was stupid enough to be out in the storm.

If you wear a poncho under a tight life jacket, you stay pretty warm. Then wear a diving mask and voila! you're a foul-weather gun runner.

It was very stupid. Now, it's time to be smart. I have a wife and kids. Haven't even ridden a motorcycle since my first child's birth.

DONZI

iTrader: (2)

I posted the thread & my thoughts.
I thought the reality of the actual mayday calls and report drives home the point of how accidents can happen under ideal navagation situations.There are always seem's to be something learned from these tragedies and discussion's.

Yes,these life changing accidents are depressing to hear about .But they are reality and serve as reminder to stay safe.

Choosing to make jokes about about someone losing there life doesn't seem to serve any purpose tho..

As far as the attitude "if we talk about a tragedy our Ins. will go up". The Ins. Co.'s receive plenty of data and break it down annually. There heads aren't buried in the sand.
Boating is safe and hopefully we can all do our part to make it safer.

gerritm

I think it is a problem with people not paying attention or being aware of their surroundings. They get into their own little world and forget about everyone else. We were damn near run over by a 40' sailboat this weekend. How would that have looked. We were sitting still on the edge of our main channel waiting for our friends to fill up at the local gas dock and the sailboat is under power heading our way and never veers off their course, as they get closer we all kind of look in amazement that they are still heading towards us and when they are within about 50 yards of running our boat over, I put it in gear and pull away from them to avoid the accident. As they pass we saw a group of 5 or 6 people partying and talking on the back deck around the person at the wheel, distracting the driver, they never did acknowledge that we were in front of them. Probably eating cheese and drinking wine. Definetly not aware.

sunchaser796

The biggest problem with alot of boaters is common sense is not common. And I have seen alot of boats owners who don't use common sense while operating a power boat or sailboat under the influence. And after reading the threads about the boating accidents that have take place is something that should'nt have happen. Which brings me back to common sense. My herart and prayers go out to the people that were killed in the accidents.
Warren

LaughingCat

That sucks. The usual outcome is they look at you like you an idiot (or yell at you) for getting in their way. Can really make your blood boil.

I once was driving a girlfriend's car which had some self-inflicted damage to the front bumper. She didn't have the money to fix it. I'm coming down a major roady all by myself and some lolly-gagger crawls across my lane waiting to turn. I have a long, silent debate about hitting him gently enough to have his insurance company repair my girlfriend's car. but I just couldn't do it.