After you get that big boat are you going to venture out of your back yard?

Nanjemoy is about 10-15 miles south of Fairview. I just like ripping on those NOVA boaters with 40' boats that only go from Occoquan to the Mattawoman and back.

OK, so now that this thread qualifies for the "off topic" forum.. How about we start another thread on theh B Bay accident and get a few facts... And who knows, maybe even find out if the injured guy is OK??

As a local resident, I would like to know what happened. It wasn't that rough nor windy in the bay the other day...

You bet Dave! I just want a guide for a first couple times so I can map my GPS on safe paths! When I have twins I will feel comfortable boating to Solomon's and such even. The prospective boat will even plane on one engine!

Oh, and my backyard is Georgetown to Fairview.

Okay then we agree that step hulls and some non step hulls are unstable................. I'll support that statement.

T2x

So what about Cat hulls? What makes them more unstable? Pods? Steps? and at what designs are more likely to blow over?

And while I am somewhat humbled the you agreed with my ( and I do respect your opinion a great deal) statement you left of the "in certian attitudes" because I don't know enough about steps to say all attitudes. For example:

A double step hull boat may be perfectly stable in a turn as long as certain drive, tab and speed requirements are maintained. A true v may remain stable at less favorable attitude. And another true V may not have as much room for error.

When you buy an airplane you have to have a Pilots Operating Handbook that tells you how the plane will perform under conditions and what those limitations are. You have red line speeds, speeds not to exceed in turbulent weather, certain attitudes you shouldn't put the plane into, weight and balance information. Loading limits, G force limits and so on. I think some of this carries over to boats, especially ones that can be less stable because of different designs, be it steps, high X dimensions, pads and even horse power. I mean putting a 500HP engine in a Cessna 150 would be insane yet. Maybe putting 1000 HP in a gladiator is also insane, I don't know.

One thing my instructor told me is "once you go outside the limits in the book you are now a test pilot and I don't think you want to be that"

I think this applies to some of the boats today I mean who knows how much much power you can put in a 42 fountain and what the loading limits are? What is the minimum acceptable turn radius, drive and trim settings for a 60 MPH turn in 3 foot seas with the boat at max weight? How does that change when the boat is 600 lbs lighter because you burned off 100 gallons of fuel and changed the CG?

Sorry for the ramble but there are a lot of factors and I haven't seen many if any manufactures produce a lot of test and operating data on their boats.

Being built west of Denver........

T2x

That is a pretty strong banket statement considering there are some West Coast built cats running in the 150-160 range out here, and not one of those boats has had a problem yet.

The 30' HTM that crashed and killed it's occupants a couple years ago would be an exception, but there is still the debate if equipment failure (broken drive) caused the accident.

There are some fast cats running on havasu every weekend, and I can not think of one that has crashed recently.

I disagree completely with you on this one Havasu Cig. I would not call it a "pretty strong blanket statement" at all.
Arrogant and irresponsible would be the words I would use.

There's that buggy whip again!!!