Sunday Drivers

The Erie Canal
43 08.47 N 076 18.54 W

On the highway the term Sunday drivers is used to mean those people who drive too slowly, enjoying the view, as they block those them.  On the water, I use the term to describe people who drive too fast and who don't know (or don't care) about their wakes.

Every boat leaves a series of waves trailing behind it called a wake.   Typically sailboats leave little or no wake.  Also, typically small high-speed motorboats that are able to plane leave little or no wake.   Bass boats that skim over the water at 50 mph seem to fly, and hardly cause a ripple.   The big problem comes from big and power boats too heavy to plane.

The size of a wake depends on the weight and speed of the power boat, and most-important its distance.  On a big lake, if the power boat can stay several hundred yards away from other boats, their big wakes don't cause problems.   However, in a narrow channel where boats are forced to come close to each other, problems caused by big wakes are greatly magnified.

Big wakes regularly cause much damage and injury.  Our cruising friend Charley was severely injured last year by a wake on Chesapeake Bay.   Tarwathie almost lost her mast last month when she was assaulted by a monster wake on Oneida Lake.  

The good news is that most boaters are aware of the problem and they act with consideration.  i.e. they slow down when passing places where their wakes will disturb.  Most important, the closer they pass, the slower they go.  In a narrow channel, if they are less than one boat length away, the only safe way is to put the engine in idle and glide past other boats.  

The bad news is that weekends and holidays bring out hoards of less experienced boaters who don't know or don't care about their wakes.   They love to go fast, and they resent the need to slow down so often to reduce their wake.   They also seem to be deaf when I call on the VHF radio to yell SLOW DOWN!  Most telling, they never look behind them to see the effect of their wake on others.   Charitable people will say it is a matter of ignorance.   Others say that they don't look back deliberately to avoid bad conscience.

Anyhow, to people like Libby and I who are on the water every day, the difference between week days and weekend days is unfortunately obvious.  When possible, we prefer to lay up on holidays in some out of the way place and leave the water to others.

But wait!  Power boaters aren't the only problem.  One day on Otter Creek in Vermont I noticed some people on kayaks gesturing vigorously at me to slow down.  Huh?  Tarwathie doesn't make any significant wake, not enough to bother a kayak, didn't those people know that?  Then it dawned on me.  No they didn't know.  I was scaring them.  I learned a lesson that day.  I need to avoid scaring other people, even if their fears are groundless.