Offshoreonly.com

Here's MY view (not that anybody asked..)

Short of total disintegration of a hull in smooth water at 35mph with no warning or provocation, 99.999% of all performance boat accidents are DRIVER ERROR.

The performance boating scene, though, is slowly racking up more and more black eyes due to everything from complaints about the noise they make, wakes they throw, high speeds in crowded areas, and how dangerous they are (which the local newspapers and media just LOVE to dwell on whenever there is an "incident"). Combine that with "real life" tragedies such as several high speed disasters in the past couple of years involving true experts at the controls, and the feeding frenzy just gets that much worse.

We all know that high speeds involve risk to life and limb. We're not stupid, for the most part. And, for the most part, the bulk of us behave rationally on the water.

We've got, though, boats available from the factory that are capable of obscene speeds. All of these machines are best suited for experienced drivers who are well acquainted with the handling characteristics of that hull, no doubt - no argument. Some of these machines behave in a manner that is NOT CONSISTENT with "street knowledge" on how to drive a performance boat. Does this make those hulls less safe? The answer is less clear than expected. The context of the question MUST be specified.

1) Does it make that hull less safe to the man who designed and performance-tested it? The answer is No.

2) Does it make that hull less safe to the man who just traded his 75mph bassboat in on it, the same man who has only owned a boat for 2 years, and in that time has learned that you trim "up for speed" and "down for turning"? I say it DOES - I say the answer is YES.

The two above illustrations are the two EXTREMES. Somewhere in the middle the answers are less black and white. The gray area is of concern to me.

Let's progress...

Assemble all of the knowledgeable step hull drivers into a room: Send them all out into different step hull boats from different mfrs and tell them to drive the paint off of them. Eventually, somebody is going to spin one or roll one. Maybe cause they have had too many beers, maybe a rogue wave in a corner, maybe an asteroid falls out of space and it's splash causes one to capsize. Might take 100 years, but let's say it finally happens. What occurs next is very telling and very important.

The guy who spins or rolls, let's hope he is fine: Now, this guy, is he going to be confused as to why it happened? Is he going to say that the boat "just suddenly went out of control for no good reason"? Of course not. He will say, Ugh, I let it get out of hand and I lost it. THE END.

Next scenario (yes I'm making these up).
Let's say the bassboat guy goes out and inside of a week, he manages to spin his step hull boat and it mows down a kid in a canoe (the guy was obviously running too closely to the canoe, wasn't paying attention or keeping a good lookout, and overreacted then he finally saw the kid).. Good chance you'll get to see interviews of the shaken driver over and over, as well as some sort of lawsuit against the manufacturer.

This is the USA. Land of the free. The land where you are FREE to sue the smile off of everything good and bring full attention to the "dangers" to humanity of a particular sport/hobby/etc..

I feel strongly that it is IRRESPONSIBLE for manufacturers to offer high performance products that have counter-intuitive handling behaviors (yet still "look" like "normal" ones) - without offering or requiring an educational course on how to properly operate that machine, and to point out its handling characteristics.

I know a LOT of dealers go to great pains to attempt to do exactly this when they sell a high performance machine. I bet that SOME individuals attempt to do the same when they sell their boat. But I see clueless fools on the water ALL THE TIME with fast boats and ZERO business being in them.

I fear for the longevity of our sport. Sure, it's great for more and more performance boats to be sold. More people enjoying it.

But accountability (and dang this is such a double-edged concept) is simply NOT going to be placed on the driver in many of these cases, because they need for him to be the VICTIM.

And the more VICTIMS we have out there behind the wheels of boats with different "handling characteristics" then the closer we are to losing our sport to regulation and insurance refusals.

I've reached the point in this thread that I don't know what it is that I think is a good answer/start/practice to implement here. I'm a guy who believes that if soebody wants to buy something, then he should be able to buy it. And if he runs it within the guidelines of the legalities of his area (lake, bay, etc) then he should be able to do it for as long and hard as he wants to. But I also believe that if something hapens to him or his boat while he is doing it, that it is part of the scope of the risks. And if he made the decision to take the risk, then he made the decision to accept what happens. Step hull or no step hull.

I see and read, though, all the time - that people are the victims and that it is the fault of the equipment or the design, etc.

While I don't agree with that, it has become the way of this population. And we can't ignore it. And so do we close a blind eye to it and say that some of our hulls are still SAFE even when it is obvious that it takes a different skill set than one will develop normally? Or do we admit that we have a bit of a "tiger in disguise" that needs to be treated in the correct manner?

Yes, I'm rambling. I don't apologize for it, cause I still see the issue as a problem and a definite "straw" that contributes to the "breaking of the camel's back"...