On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 05:19:11 -0700 (PDT), Tim
wrote:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNCFjZthD9g

At about 12:00 a 30 something power boat gets broached out of the
channel, almost hits the breakwater, and ends up aground in the surf.

There are several other close calls.

Are people using poor judgement, or I’d this normal everyday life for
them?

===

Maybe a little of each. It's clearly an inlet that is capable of
being very dangerous in some conditions, and there seems to be a lot
of commercial fishing activity. The boat that got broached out of the
channel appeared to be recreational however. It's not a place where
I'd choose to enter if there was any other alternative. The
commercial guys are trying to make a living and probably go out in
conditions that are marginal, and sometimes conditions deteriorate
while they are out there and needing to get back.

As you can see from the videos, the biggest risk is coming back in and
having a big wave pick up your stern, throwing you into a classic
broach as the bow digs in and the stern gets spun around. The boat is
out of control at that point and you just have to hold on and hope for
the best. The recreational boat was lucky to have been washed up on
the beach insteat of being thrown into the rock jetty or rolled over
in the surf.

The only defense against a large overtaking wave is to try and stay
ahead of it, but not so fast that you plunge over the top of the wave
ahead, or bury the bow in the trough. It's easy to misjudge if the
waves start to stack up in an irregular pattern.

Here's a rather chilling sequence of pictures taken off the Florida
coast a few years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Psa49dMJdU

This sportfish was going a bit too fast and plunges over the top of
one wave and buries the bow in the wave ahead. As the boat violently
rolls, the captain is thrown overboard and drowns.

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