Boat wake; inconsiderate operators

Obviously I wasn’t there to see what happened to you and I consider myself a very courteous boater. Don’t want to start anything with you but my perception is that a majority of boaters are hyper sensitive about wake. To me it is amazing some peoples expectations. I have a dinghy and a 16’ Whaler so I am very familiar with the other side of the coin. I don’t expect the big guys to slow up for me and it is on me to deal with their wake. I am speaking when underway and not tied up or anchored. Once again don’t know your situation and not trying to make you out to be one of the wake nazis.

I want to add that when in the “big” boat I slow up for all boats that are underway, anchored, or tied up with the exception of wave runners. I have had people holler at me for the waking their docks with no boat tied up. To me that is unreasonable. But some of you may feel differently.

Its been a while since i ve run the ditch as we now are in SoFl and the Exumas year round.

When i used to do the seasonal trips up and down it was with a 70 MY and i would always do slow passes for slower boats like sailboats and trawlers. Properly done, it takes about 30" and even if you do this 40 to 50 times in a day, it only adds an extra half hour. Courtesy is worth it. I ve been on the receiving end of large wakes (almost always sportfishes) and even in a 70 footer it s no fun.

Even worst are the idiots that are too lazy to jog the AP even with miles of open water on either side...

Yes ... I have learned to communicate with boats I'm about to pass on the radio as well. Without the communication, sometimes they are never happy with the result. The only way for a small boat to be unaffected by a pass is to stop and allow the pass at idle speed. Sailboats seem to not understand this sometimes.

Exactly this in South FL. When I move to pass, I'd say 10% of people slow down or stop. Most stay at the same speed, which means I have to speed up, creating a wake worse than if I blew by at a faster speed.

Well I don’t want to defend the guy throwing the wake and maybe he has room to pass further out but there are way too many boats fishing in or on the edge in the edge of busy channels. Consideration goes both ways.

I don’t fish... but i Sail small boats and i stay away from the marina channel as I don’t expect pepole to slow down

Doesn’t excuse rude and unsafe behavior.

Agree with Pascal, consideration has to go both ways. Grew up boating on the upper Mississippi River with 40'+ boats, a 16' and a dinghy and SWFL in 20'-40' boats. Sometimes you are the "big" boat and can't please everyone and other times you are the small boat and have to realize what situation the "big" boat is dealing with or got stuck in.

Been yelled at on the radio and given plenty of "the finger" to big sport fishers who blast by us in the "big" boat. Like most things in life you learn that you do the best and be the most courteous you can be...doesn't always get you same in return. Its common sense, BUT I also don't feel as sorry for the fishers who anchor just outside an active channel with no limit and then shake their fist at every boat that passes as speed. Find a better fishing hole, if there is that much traffic probably not good fishing.

For over 30 years the access from our house to the Gulf was No Wake and in it took 15-20 mins to get to the Pass access. People would be out yelling about the wake and dead idle if trolling valves weren't engaged. A few years ago No Wake was lifted and it has become a free-for-all...everyone thought it was bad all those years!

Also I think on bigger boats (bigger egos?), once they are on plane and running, slowing and then going back to speed over and over again gets tiring to the owner.

We are all responsible for our own wake. Last spring we made a trip down the ICW on the west side of Florida and I was really surprised at the lack of courtesy once we got south of Bradenton. I guess the locals consider this normal, but in the panhandle it doesn't seem to happy very often. Or at least it's not tolerated as well. Rednecks have a way of helping a bad attitude!

I don't think the rules have changed. Don't know your facts so this isn't directed at you. You can't put yourself in a place that's going to be a problem and then complain about the boat traffic and getting rocked.. For instance, I go in and out of Shinnecock inlet regularly. Home bound I can be facing some big stuff. Just inside the inlet a bit further it can become quite flat and fluke fishermen fill the area. Question: do I take a 15 footer into my cockpit because they put themselves there? No - and the local guys know that and have no problem being rocked as I escape the surf. They even wave.

In the opposite circumstance if there is a cluster of fishers surrounding a reef or rip, I go way around them, assuming I have the room, even though it may take me significantly off course. I do the same thing for a closing sailboat or one that I'm over taking. But if that same sailboat is sailing right down the middle of a busy route, getting rocked is his fault.

Just because you think there's a fish is waiting under your bottom, the world doesn't stop around you for you to stop there and try for it. You may have to catch that fish "over there". There are many more boats on the water these days, and as said above courtesy is a 2 way street.. another example. I have nothing against sail boats, in fact I sail, but ever been moving down that narrow channel at the 5 or 6 knots permitted only to find a guy moving at 3 knot square down the middle -and he hasn't turned around to see the 12 boat stack behind him. In that situation, I'm already only using one engine and now I'm going in and out of that one transmission and swinging my helm over and back to keep some kind of straight line, and he hasn't a clue what he's causing behind him. Plus now the guy behind me who CAN slow his boat to 3 knots without going in and out of the gears thinks I'm drunk!

I think Beau said it well. We are responsible for our wakes I have got no problem with that. But getting a middle finger over a 6” wake is unreasonable. Landside guy in the Okeechobee hailing my on the VHF cause I waked his dock with no boat on it. He bought a VHF just so he can ***** at people waking his dock. Some of these people are just looking to be offended or outraged or whatever. It’s as if they have no responsibility to look after there boat and situation, the burden is on the other person to see that no one is impacted in the slightest by what someone else is doing. What I might consider a nuisance some of these people think is a lawsuit.
Maybe I am getting old. This wake thing is a reflection of our society which has changed in my lifetime. Struggling to describe it but its as if a lot of us are hypersensitive and looking to be offended and pissed off. Is that what some call a snowflake. Salty senior I am not saying you are one of these people. BTW you site a lawsuit (which my be justified). What were your damages?

There's always someone complaining about someone with wakes. One day its sailboaters complaining, one day it's fishermen, another day trawlers. One day they're complaining about commercial fishermen, one day about SF's, one day about ferries, one day about express boats. One of the problems is that everyone on the water has different expectations. I understand how a small boat could get badly waked. However, we go out and mess around in our 11-18' Rib's and we just look for wakes and take them safely. We live near the water sports zone in Fort Lauderdale. We have people coming out of canals into the larger canal and by our home. In our Riva's if we run 15 knots, we make a huge wake, but at 35 knots and a reasonable distance have none that reaches a boat, yet we get cursed if we run faster for running too fast and making a wake we don't make.

I've known people to buy homes along the ICW with docks and then complain about wakes even though not in a no wake zone. Following their logic, then you couldn't have a wake anywhere on the ICW. I don't know the proximity of you to the other boats or the size of their wakes. However, while I would have tried to avoid waking you if possible, I think if you're going to anchor just outside the channel in an area that is not wake restricted, then you should anticipate some wake during the course of your fishing. I grew up on a lake and on a weekend, you didn't boat or fish without wake. Perhaps that made me less of one to complain when I get waked. It was part of boating on the lake, especially with all the wakeboard boats designed to create major wake.

In your mind, is every boat that comes through the area, running the channel, expected to slow to no wake speed when you anchor just outside the channel? I would attempt to give a very moderate wake through a decent speed and a wide swing away from you, but I wouldn't slow to no wake.

What was the height of the wake that hit you, using normal wave heights as the distance from peak to trough?

I slow down when warranted, except for large go fast boats doing 60+ mph converting gasoline to noise with a giant rooster tail.

Salty Senior I am sincerely not trying to antagonize you or make light of your situation. To me a reasonable person could question whether the chair was mounted properly or core was rotten where it was screwed or bolted. Like I said before I have a 16 footer which i use frequently and my brother in law actually broke when of the mounted chairs. But I expect a boat chair to handle violent rocking. My point is, it is the boat owner’s responsibility to ensure that his boat is ready for the water and the conditions to be encountered. Once again I don’t know your situation and it does sound like the other guy was inconsiderate at a minimum. The water is a dynamic environment that is different from the being on the shore. I think some of us are so used to everything going smoothly as it does on land. Then the get out on the water and it is not under our control at all. I have to constantly check my frustration with all the things that go wrong on a boat that dont happen at my home at least not with the frequency. Maybe OB said it more succinctly we unreasonable expectations.

The only advice I can give to you is in the future to be better prepared. You said "my chair broke" which prompts me to ask what kind of chair. It sounds like your injuries were a result of a chair giving way and already having had a hip replacement I'd sure find better seating. I would expect in the future to not get waked in "no wake" zones although would still be prepared, but I'd expect wakes everywhere else. I would not expect a wake free ICW. Even if 9 out of 10 don't wake you, you must be prepared for number 10.

I don't know about any change as I wasn't here when it was ever any different than today. Why accepted? Well, if I'm on the water I just expect wakes. I have never encountered wakes on the ICW to even come close to what we had every weekend on the lake. I live just off the ICW and my dock gets waked every day but when I bought a waterfront home, I anticipated that. The worst wakes are often right before or after a no wake zone with boats slowing or accelerating. To not wake anyone, including boats at docks and docks, would require boaters to travel the entire distance of the ICW at no wake speed.

We do try to not wake others but we don't expect not to be waked.

Is this a folding chair in a 15 foot skiff?