The angry reaction is easy to explain. An inexperienced "skipper" has been embarrassed. I can remember when I was inexperienced but trying very hard to do all the right things. Exposure to doing a wrong thing feels humiliating and my response was usually to blame something else. Unclear instructions (where does it say I have to go slow?) (Where are their markers that show 5 MPH?) (Who are you to tell me what to do?) All excuses. When requesting a slow-down I find that about 50% of the reactions I get are negative. I suppose I will get about 75% compliance but 50% will bitch about it. I personally do not always slow down just because some angler anchored in the middle of the channel demands it. Or because some oncoming sailboat will be rocked by my wake. If we are in a navigable waterway with no legal speed limit posted, it's up to me to decide if I want to slow down. Why are they speeding where they are legally constrained? Primarily ignorance I think. Especially in summer time when we see a large percentage of inexperienced or worse, charter boat novices, in big fast yachts. They have two weeks to cover their itinerary and they have to move it to get there. Piddling along is not on their agenda. Moreover, as you mentioned, they have never been on the receiving end of a huge wake. I confess that I get tired of folks complaining about wakes in areas where there are no legal constraints. You're in a boat for goodness sakes. If you want it nice and flat, don't use a boat. Before you scream, "you are responsible for your wake" let's be clear. The responsibility about wake is a civil issue. If you damage my boat or dock then I can try to sue you for those damages. Nevertheless, the obligation of proof is mine. I have to show that it was you, and that you were causing an excessive wake in an area where it was reasonable to expect less wake (or legally controlled speed) and that I had taken all reasonable precautions to minimize wake damage. That's a tough one to prove unless it's really blatant and you have witnesses, video, something other than your own observation. Especially if I was outside the 200 foot limit where no wake is not mandatory. If I pass your boat at speed in the navigable channel and my wake causes your TV set to fall on the floor, your claim will not be supported at all. That's because it is reasonable to assume that in a boat, you will meet with rough water and your TV should have been secured. Of course in areas that are legally speed controlled..... And that doesn't mean just because the local homeowners group stuck speed limit signs out in the channel... that means where the appropriate authorities have declared a regulated speed zone, then the local authorities can legally cite a speeding boat. I would be really suspicious of the legality of any "required" speed zone that was not correctly posted. I'm not saying it's OK to speed there, but it is probably another courtesy and not legal issue. Therefore, it usually comes down to courtesy. I have my personal courtesy standards and they have changed over the years. I go slower in general and do not resent having to slow down as much as I did. But if I have a long way to go and short time to get there, and if I am in a navigable channel where the commercial traffic throws a big wake too.... well I'll move away from you as far as I can, but I'm probably not getting off plane. Joe Engel, Portland, OR ----Original Message----- From: C. Marin Faure [mailto:cmfaure@earthlink.net] Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2003 10:14 PM To: trawler-world-list@lists.samurai.com Subject: TWL: Water Rage (was Bernoulli Patoulli) Subject: TWL: Bernoulli Patoulli To: Cruising List <trawler-world-list@lists.samurai.com> >What I do know is that if you're in a narrow canal about 8 feet deep and a big 50 or 60-foot Carver Ray is coming at you about 30 knots throwing up a huge wake (as happened to me recently in the Florida Panhandle "Canyon") you better call and ask or motion him (as I did) to slow down. (He got furious,by the way.) What is with this reaction? Several similar instances have happened within the past few weekends in a popular marine park bay we frequent in the San Juans. Boats, usually fair to good size "cruisers" of the semi-planing or planing variety will head into or out of the bay at considerably above the required (but not posted, unfortunately) speed of 4 knots. As people on moored boats along their course would motion or hail the boat to please slow down, the reaction three out of four times is to speed up, often accompanied by flipping off the moored boats they are passing.

                                THE GREAT AWAKENING

In the wake of this discussion, pun fully intended, I pulled up this article that I penned a few years ago for our USPS newsletter. It deals with wakes, duh. THE GREAT AWAKENING I apologize to you literary types, this is another type awakening; the realization of the consequences of a wake from a passing boat on the maker and the recipient thereof. The outcome of this case may surprise you. The following was taken from a published opinion of the La. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. The case is entitled Jimmy Marcantel v. Frank Breaux, Jr., Cameron Offshore Boats, Inc., 544 So.2d 126 (La. Ct. Ap. 3 Cir. 1989), writ Denied by the Louisiana Supreme Court. That is, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court's opinion. In this case the owner of an anchored vessel, MISS MANDY. An 8' x 20' aluminum shrimp boat, was just inside Calcasieu Lake in Cameron Parish. Three other shrimp boats were anchored in close proximity to the MISS MANDY and all four boats were anchored together in a square pattern. The boats were all anchored with one anchor on the bow and two anchors on the stern of each boat. The plaintiff testified that he thought the crewboat ELIZABETH McCALL passed the anchored boats and sank the MISS MANDY. It was elicited at trial that none of the crew of any of the four anchored boats, including the plaintiff, actually saw the ELIZABETH McCALL pass at the time plaintiff's boat sank. There was conflicting testimony as to the description of the crewboat that passed just before the MISS MANDY was discovered sunk. No one actually saw it go down. The plaintiff alleged that the MISS MANDY went down just before noon and that he immediately called the Cameron Parish sheriff's office by radio. The dispatcher's log from the sheriff's office indicates that the accident was not reported until 4:09 p.m.! Hmmm. The trial court found that the crewboat that first passed the anchored boats was the ELIZABETH McCALL even though there was some discrepancy as to the description of the boat and the captain. The plaintiff and his friends said the captain of the ELIZABETH McCALL had a beard and the captain testified under oath that he never wore a beard. The court went on to say in its judgment that the testimony about the boat's identity comes from three people, none of whom actually witnessed the sinking. The court felt that it was important that plaintiff could not recall the size of the wake allegedly caused by the crewboat that passed before he discovered the MISS MANDY had sunk. Neither could any of the witnesses so testify. During the cross examination of one of the witnesses, he admitted that he based his estimate of the size of the wake solely on the fact that he felt his boat rock when the crewboat first passed the anchored boats but he did not personally observe the wake nor its size. The judge went on to state that there was no direct evidence that the wake of the ELIZABETH McCALL was unreasonable. There was only a comment from one witness who said that his boat rocked "more than usual." No one took any particular note of an oversized wake. It is interesting that the judge opined, "The only thing that brought excitement to this group was when Mr. Marcantel noticed sometime, up to as many as five minutes later that his boat was now under water." The judge went on to state that there was the distinct possibility that perhaps the MISS MANDY sank before the arrival of the ELIZABETH McCALL. The judge further stated, "...but I think that it's reasonable to assume that the sinking resulted from the wake of the large vessel. Now a boat underway cannot be expected to have an absence of any wake. I believe the testimony of Mr. Breaux that entering the shallow waters a 46' boat would have to go very slowly under any conditions. One explanation for this sinking may come from the anchoring procedures used by these vessels. The boat was anchored on three points and a boat so anchored exposes itself to the inability to roll with swells. And a passing boat, such as the ELIZABETH McCALL, is not the insurer of every other vessel along its line of passage. A vessel underway can assume that other vessels have not put themselves in such a precarious position that a minimal swell, somewhere between 6" to 1', would cause damage, much less a sinking. There is no showing that the standard of reasonable behavior or any other maritime duty has been breached in this instance. And so, for those reasons the court is going to grant the motion to dismiss the plaintiff's suit at plaintiff's cost." Enough said. CCC Charles C Culotta Patterson, La.