Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

I bought my batboat because I wanted to drive a performance boat within the limits of safety but still have the thrill of offshore racing. Every time I drive it I go out with the sole intent of having that thrill. Secondary to that, I found that I also enjoy the response I get from those who love the way it looks and the people who gather around it everywhere I go. I understand the fun it is to have people oogle over my boat, but didn't we all buy performance boats because we wanted the thrill of driving them?

Then why do so many people spend hundreds of thousands on a high performance boat and cruise at speeds that are achievable in non-performance boats only to lift the engine hatch and sit at the dock all day?

I am not looking for a fight. As a matter of fact I am bipolar and can't even handle one. I just have thought about it for many years and want to hear a discussion about my observation.

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

Some of us got tired of breaking open fuel tanks, busted drives and blown engines. Slower means things last longer. <gg>

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

Why drive it like you stole it? All you're doing is beating it to death.
You take anything mechanical and run it at full capacity, throttle, etc. and it'll cost you a bundle to maintain.
People buy Ferrari's, Lamborghini's, Porsche's, Corvette's all of which are capable of triple digit speeds. But you don't see the owners tearing up the highways. Besides the fact of it being illegal, it's also gets quite expensive. I certainly wouldn't spend that kind of money on a purchase just to blow it up.
One other point.....a boat traveling at 80+ mph is dangerous. All it takes if for one idiot on a PWC, a bass boat, sail boat, row boat, to get in your path and it's over. Traveling at those speeds you can not make any sudden moves or changes in course. You're just an accident waiting to happen.

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

is this the pansies thread? :evilb: shouldn't you log on to cruisers.com? suck it up boys...get bigger drives, get spare engines, get a second job for gas money...f the jet skiers

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

I guess I'm a "pansy". I bought my boat more to handle the rough stuff with ease than to blast off all the time (of course, my old bird is no speedster anyway). But, we really just wanted to be able to go out in almost anything and get a good ride out of it. We blast off once in a while. I like it that way just fine. :p

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

I dunno Tom. I bought a cat for the sole purpose of running it hard and fast. I have been told I have a two position throttle. Dock and Drive :)

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

NO one i take on board with me can handle going fast and the stress ont he body that goes with it, so i have to keep it slow (<80). When im on my own i try to open it up more. Most people just enjoy being on the water, but like the idea that if they want to, they can open it up and get some speed, but 90% of the time, they just wanna cruise around, or look cool.

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

sounds like a plan

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

Maybe that's whe nobody ever goes for a second ride with me :-) They do talk about the first ride for the rest of their life though.

I drive all the time away from everyone else in 3 - 4 footers at 80 - 90. That way it is stil in the safe range, nobody else is around to cut in front of me, and I still have power to spare if I need it. In two footers I drive WOT at 100. I run ferry wakes in the mid 90s because there are only three of them and the first one makes me fly right over the other two. I refuse to go out in less than 2 footers becaue it is like driving down the highway even at 100 because of the cockpit.

I too am sick of breaking things all the time, but I would rather the boat sit in the garage than have it be no fun on the water. I just figure it costs $500 an hour to run it and even though I can no longer afford it and have to limit my outings, it is worth it. If I could afford a $1,000,000 boat (which I can't) than I should be able to afford maintenance, yet people with $1,000,000 boats park them at the dock and rarely drive them hard.

Speaking of 'drive it like you stole it', I don't understand why someone buys a ferrari and puts $1,500 miles on it in ten years. If I can't afford a ferrari I would rather buy a Lotus Elise and have the fun of driving a car that handles almost as well if not better. After my third penis enlargment cut off all sensation I wish I had a less impressive tool that was fun to drive. :-)

The feedback so far makes sense. At leaset now when I see it I can imagine one of the reasons given.

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

ITS ALL ABOUT THE THRILL OF THE RIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!mark.........

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

now thats what im talkin bout

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

There are several types of performance-boat owners.....

1. The guy who bought a go-fast so he could look cooler than all the other middle-age divorced alcoholics at his yacht club who sit on them tied to the docks all weekend, hammered out of their gourds.

2. The guy who needed the biggest, not the highest quality as bigger is way more impressive to the non-knowing.

3. The guy who got a no-money-down, 35 year loan and can't afford the water to wash the thing let alone the fuel and engine parts.

4. The nutcase that's going to do whatever the fuc& he wants- in no-wake zones, 3' from your dock, at night or whenever the mood strikes him. (ferry wakes may fit into this category- depends on how close)

5. Losers who don't know sh!t about their boats other than some of the skanks at the waterside bars will blow them for rides around the bay.

6. Guys who know their equipment, know the water and know boat handling. They run hard but smart. They know the cost of doing business and are willing to accept them.


There are more but this easy-to-use, dockside identification guide will get you most of the way home.

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

You offer the exact answer to your own argument. Offshore is the last place we can go to do something like this. Most of the people who own those cars have no idea how to operate them at over 70 MPH. I grew so sick of expensive-car guys back when I raced cars. They always were talking sh1t about driving this and that. For the $$ they had tied up, they could have been out there "doing it" but it's safer driving the Lambo to Dairy Mart. More broads ogling too.

If you've got bass boats and sail boats where you run, you shouldn't even be there in an offshore boat.

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

How about letting us know which one of these catagories that you fall into??


....or are you one of those people who doesn't own a boat, but knows everything about them? :D

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

Yeah, I forgot about #7, the wannabe. Internet is full of 'em.

I'd say I'm a reformed #4, tryin' hard to be a #6 but right now is a #8- Boater with a huge project that he'll be lucky to live long enough to reassemble!

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

To each his own. YOU get to use YOUR boat exactly the way YOU want (safely), tell anyone else to F off if they don't like it. That is what is great about boating. <gg>

I do have to laugh at some "Macho boaters" who have never cruised huge distances offshore, or been in storms at sea, tell people they are throttles to the wall all the time.....then you find out they .................... (fill in goof fact here).

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

Just go buy an Apache :drink:

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

TOM I To pick the days I go out, and no one seems to go on a second ride with me too :eek: :D I ride offshore too. no jet skies to run in to :rolleyes: and I like to run as fast as I can and be in control :rolleyes: next yr I plan on racing again its been a couple of yrs my nav in last race quit :rolleyes: after the race but I have a young buck ex coast guard kid that went out for one test ride he wants to race next yr :D we will see :evilb:

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

I'd say I am a #6. Joe Murray

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

We have a scale for our bipolar condition that this reminds me of. When we start our support group meetings everyone introduces themselves, tells what the diagnosis is of their condition (I am bipolar 1 with psychotic features) and rates their condition on a scale of 1 - 10. 1 means about to pull the trigger and commit suicide, 5 is pretty stable and ten is so manic that you are bouncing off the walls so much that it is a danger to society. I usually say I am a 3 and a 7 at the same time, but sometimnes a 2 or 3 and an 8, meaning depressed and pretty manic at the same time.

I think the bipolar scale just about covers my boat rides too. I am a nine while driving until something inevitably breaks and then I am a 2 or a 3 until I get the boat back on the trailer and then strangly enough I am a 7 just from looking at it on the trailer and remembering how much fun it is to drive.

I would like to say I am a six on Chris' great scale, but some people who see me running think I am crazy, which just happens to be true! I would like to think that those who have been out with me who know performance boats think I am a six, but part of my mental illness is delusions of grandeur after all :-) At least I don't jsut run WOT in any condition...

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

#5 has me written all over it......... :D :D :drink: :drink: :drink: :drink: :evilb: :evilb:

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

Doesn't make you a bad person!!!! :D :drink: :evilb:

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

Yea, if Im not blowing engines or drives, I m not trying hard enough. Thats where the fun is, pushing it till they break.

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

Oh by the way, it helps to live up here in the great white north so you have all winter to fix everything you broke in the summer. Quess if I lived down south I might have a different attitude.

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

Owning an Apache is cheating, plain and simple. It lets you do things others can only fantasize about while watching Ben's old race videos and crying unconsolably. Nothing like catching a couple hundred feet of air off a rogue 12 footer at 90 mph.

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

I new a guy who did that...........had burnt lips most of the time...............m.m.......just joking.......I thought it was about keeping them running!!!!!!!!!mark.............

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

Tom, 1st lets clarify what the average boat cruises at... 23mph?
When I go out w/ friends, I cruise at 50, which is 4000rpm, which is 75% of wot 5500rpm. So I don't run at speeds which the average boater runs.
On the other hand... 50 is screaming fast for a non boater. Especially w/o a canopy, which your boat seems to have.
I won't run wide open all the time, that irresponsible to my engine and equipment.

BTW, do only run your boat during your manic swings? :drink: JK.

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

I run my boat to switch from depressed to manic. It works great! Then it breaks, I get depressed until it gets back on the trailer, then I get to a perfect slightly manic state with delusions of grandeur that I like very much. Boating is the only thing that no matter how depressed it takes me out of it.

Real depression is not something you can "snap out of" or "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" or "have a cup of coffee and get on with life" as so many people try to advise me of. Methamphetamine or lack of sleep for several days (actually sleep deprivation therapy is being researched as effective) might work, but the risk of going too manic is very high. Too manic is worse than depressed. Not only am I at risk of my own life, everybody around me wants to kill themself too just from putting up with me. www.bipolarinorder.org might help explain it more if you are interested.

Manic Depression has given me the ability to do great things in my life, or at least the delusion to think they were!

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

Tom to help me understand BP disorder better, I'll need pics of your boat. :D

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

Really, meth is a key to success?
I've hear alot of things throughout any given day, this is one of 'em.

I've had my 20 year old boat in the water four times since it's been running and I'd like to keep it that way. Besides, I'm looking for that bar where bimbos give hummers for a ride around the bay...;)

Re: Crazy Tom's question about performance boating
 

There are pics of my batboat on page one of this thread or at www.batboats.com.

Meth will get someone out of depression, but definitely not to success. I know several people who abused meth as part of their bipolar condition and it ruined their lives. Some say if you want to know what it is like to be manic, take meth for a few weeks and the symptoms will be pretty close - horrible.

If you are looking for bimbos to give you a hummer, you don't need a boat, just hang out with Nort at Yardys and be sure to wear a condom :-) That's what he got his boat for according to his own post! I don't believe him though (about the boat, I've seen the pictures of the bimbos.) For the price of a boat, not to mention gas, you can have all the hookers you want until you die from lack of blood flow to your head at the ripe old age of 100.