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 Cruising
Consideration
by
Dusty Miller
I
have a cottage on a small serene lake off the Severn Canal. On the
far shore is a waterfall that I can hear on still days and quiet
nights. Most of the other cottagers on this lake, and the next one,
love to come in with their canoes and paddleboats. They follow the
shoreline among the lily pads to enjoy the tranquility and watch
the birds. Occasionally, some will come in with their electric motors
and fish. By and large the peace remains unbroken.
As is so often the case, there is one exception,
in fact, there are two. At about 10 a.m., just as I sit down to
my mid-morning cup of coffee, I hear the little 9.9 hp outboard
start up and a young boater begins to tear up and down the lake
in his 13-foot aluminum cartop. Up and down. Up and down. Up and
down......you get the picture.
OK, maybe his parents don't want him to go out into
the next lake as it is larger and farther from home and out of sight
or maybe he's just learning. But that's not the case. As you know,
the handle on an outboard angles off to port, so the boater sits
in front of the motor, midships, and steers with his left hand.
This fellow (I don't know how he does it) sits to the port side
of the handle and operates the boat with his right hand. So every
time he turns to starboard, he practically pushes himself out of
the boat. When he turns to port, his portside gunwale is dangerously
close to being swamped. Once I asked him why he sat like that. He
just shrugged and drove away.
To make matters worse, this young lad has a friend.
I don't know whether they know each other but they are equally inconsiderate.
The second boater has a personal watercraft. (Top)
He begins his day by tearing around the lake a couple
of times at breakneck speeds then heads straight for the stern of
my 25-foot Bertram hardtop express - my pride and joy. Every time,
and just in time, he makes a hard turn to port no more than 20 feet
from my boat. If he suddenly lost control he could end up in my
Bertram. Without a break in speed, he goes downriver, leaving boats
and floating docks rocking in his wake. This rider even goes under
a small bridge at full throttle. This bridge, incidentally, has
an overhead clearance of six feet two inches and it's no more than
thirteen or fourteen feet wide. Despite this, he just takes a quick
aim of what amounts to a blind turn and goes. Heaven help him if
there's a canoe or paddle boat heading the other direction, or,
worse yet, a swimmer. He also does the same thing at night - it
must be nice to be bulletproof.
Once I was cruising up the Severn from Georgian
Bay toward my place. As I passed a marina, a large cruiser backed
straight out of its slip into the channel, right in front of me.
When the operator finally saw me and realized how close he had come
to hitting my boat he got angry at me. He started shouting obscenities
as if I was the one who had had put him in danger!
Here's another example. A couple of years ago,
a group of Power Squadron boaters and other volunteers, along with
one or two police boats, were guiding swimmers across Lake Couchiching
during a marathon. A boater cruising at high speeds came through
the Narrows at Atherly and headed straight for the swimmers, unaware
of what was going on and not even curious about why there were all
these boats in a straight line. (Top)
The police tried to hail and stop him, but to no
avail. Finally, one of the boats had to accelerate right into the
path of the performance boat to save the swimmers. The collision
resulted in a lot of damage to both boats but, fortunately, no one
was hurt. This guy was caught. Too many of the others are not.
On top of the carelessness on the waterway, boaters
don't realize the damage their wake can create to shorelines, moored
boats and floating docks. What disturbs me is these boaters are
giving the rest of us a bad reputation. I don't know what the answer
is. The Pleasure Craft Operators Card is a start, but you can't
legislate behaviour. Incon-siderate and unskilled people will be
inconsiderate and unskilled regardless of the law - if only they'd
understand how much fun boating can be when you follow the rules.
You can take a performance boat and run it flat
out in a poker run. You can wait until you're out in open water
before opening up a PWC. You can look where you're going in a cruiser
and take great pleasure out of putting it into the slip or up against
the dock so the fenders just kiss the side. But how to make some
people understand the rules and consideration on the water is beyond
me. I just want to sit on my deck and enjoy my coffee in peace,
without worrying about someone flying into my Bertram.
(Top)
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