let's see, this weekend's close calls:

a pontoon boat pulling a tube with a kid on it. Turns in my path 400 or 500 yards ahead of me. I'm in a 30+ foot deepvee running 55 ish. Has all the time in the world to change his course, but blindly continues towards my path. I angle off to port (towards uncomfortably shallow water). Then his tuber falls off (a kid ten or so). He guns the pontoon boat, not cutting a circle back to his fallen rider, but across my path, still pulling a tube. I had to pull back and turn a couple of zigzags to burn off speed cause I don't want to cut towards the fallen kid, and I don't want to stuff my props in the mud. Pontoon man runs over into the shallows blasting mud with his Force 120 outboard, turns around and cuts right back in front of me (which I am completely expecting by now). He, and the other 8 or 9 brain dead passengers just look at me as they head back to the rider.

As I am towing my toys back to the marina, I am in a cruiser, with my Formula on a 100' line behind me. I have 2 Waverunners each on a 50' line, behind the Formula. I am making about 9 mph. I am making a corner where the channel takes a hard left alongside a rock bluff. I am decidedly to the starboard side of the channel from my direction. A Gibson houseboat is running hard (20kts or so) towards me. As he closes, it appears that he is taking a bead to cut between me and the bluff on MY starboard. I check the radar and a visual to see if there is something on my port to cause him to do this, there is not. About this time, he veers towards my port and I adjust back closer to the bluff. Now, he is fairly close and is obviously not going to slow down (which is no biggie to me, I could care less. His wake is not going to cause me any grief). He now cuts towards the bluff, again appearing to be heading between me and the bluff. There ain't a whole lot of room between me and the bluff by now. I try to hail him on the VHF, but nothing. I cut hard port to show him my beam and make my intentions clear. He indeed sqeueezes between me and the bluff. There was around 50' of space for him. He cranked right on thru at mid 20's. Police boat right behind him. They just cruised by and waved.

Lady in a 75' aluminum houseboat was piloting out of a tight marina while I was setting fenders and lines on the Formula at the guest dock. She got a crosswind and freaked while hubby was on the aft lounge with a cool one. She tried to steer out of trouble but swung her stern right towards me. I was setting the springline, and unhooked it and shoved the boat forwards in the slip. She bounced the stern of the boat off the dock finger, passed right through where my Formula's swim platform would have been, and crunched into the corner of a 52' Bluewater. Some glass and rubrail damage. Ugh.

In addition, to restore the proper balance in the universe, I hopped on the WaveRaider and cut off a few dozen boats...

I watched a jet ski cross in front of my buddies Sunsation and then make an immediate cut back in front of him again, they both swerved and the wash from the jet ski sprayed the boat. From behind I thought for sure he smoked her. I don't want to see these idiots hurt, just get smarter before getting on them.

There was a picture in the Atlanta Journal, I think it was in thursday paper, that showed the DNR and the exact same jet ski guy getting lectured. It was priceless.

Packinair~ Love the slogan!!!

We ran into (not literally) so many 4th of July Yahoos this weekend ! The jet skis were the worst, but I also saw alot of idiots tubing across the channels and across the middle of the lake. You would think that with towing someone behind them, they would stay parallel to the shore, out of the way of the main drag.

Maureen

We saw the usual problems - jet skis cutting us off, boats going perpendicular across the main channel from the direction everyone else was going assuming they had the right of way when they didn't. Even saw one guy blow through a no-wake zone under a bridge right in front of the water patrol and get pulled over over which put a smile on our faces. But, I did actually see a person on a jet ski who appeared like she was getting ready to cut in front of us turn around and look back first.

But I would have to say the worst thing we saw this weekend was a boat pulling a skier that looked to be about 12 and the person driving goes blasting by right next to this pontoon boat. My husband and I were both certain that he was going to smash the kid right into the back of the pontoon boat but somehow the skier was able to avoid it and then lost it right after they got by.

Cyndi

You know what is the worst part of all these close calls? These people probably just laugh it off afterwords and thought how funny it was to come so close and survive. Good luck is a poor excuse for stupidity. Next time the law of averages will come in to play and they will not be laughing. They won't be able to with their jaw wired shut.:mad: