Tony wrote:
Hi Terry
I guess from your post that you dont like power boaters :-)

Power boaters are like car drivers who crash into buses when they stop at
bus stops and then complain that the bus should not have stopped!
Sailboats are always unpredictable by their nature so I can never understand
why so many powerboaters have to overtake sooo close even when there is
plenty of searoom

Tony uk


That is at the crux, but it does not apply to all power boaters,
only to the sourest creamy scum at the height of arrogance,
ignorance and hubris.

Most boaters come to realize that railing at loggerheads or swimmers
will never do them any good, and their best defence against
collision with rocks or slow boats in the grips of the wind and
tides is to give them sea room. Those who complain about rocks that
bash in the fronts of their boats are only denying the truth.

These types are the ones who speed through narrow channels and
complain because they really believe that sailors are doing what
they cannot understand to be necessary, but are doing it only to
inconvenience them. Nor do they want to learn why, or how,
unfortunately, because they would improve their own chances if they
did learn and appreciate the powers that the sea and wind exercise
over those dedicated to exploring and enjoying nature's natural
force, akin to skiers versus snowmobilers.

A sailboat is at the whim of the winds, like grass on a golf course.
It is not the fault of the grass that the golf ball be deflected
by the hazards of the course, if the golfer choose his shot, then
execute it poorly, coming too close to the rough.

Better he should continue to golf, and improve his game, but he
never will so long as he blames his tools, or the course.

I love all those who share my love of the water and messing about in
boats. I would help, even if by what seems criticism, those who
would listen: the wind makes sailboats do unexpected things. Smart
boaters know this. Fools complain they were disrespected when it is
they who disrespect nature, physics, and other's needs and rights.
The Colregs recognize reality, and sailors who decide to raise their
sails, even though they would waste no time doing it, are easily
overtaken by myopic rocket drivers who cannot conceive it is their
choice to crowd rocks, swimmers and other hazards like sailors
battling to raise or lower sails even with an assist from an engine
which is totally inadequate to control all aspects of such operations.

Some boaters use any excuse to claim rights, even when their
arguments are specious: flagging a sail gives them no more rights
over power, than they deserve as power drivers themselves, but smart
boater know that dragging a sail through the action of setting it in
a wind strong enough to make sailing profitable impedes their
ability and scope of control over their navigation ability, not to
mention winch knots, flying fish, and lines snarled on necks,
spectacles or tiller handles. Sailors are often a busy lot, easy to
sneak up on, if abusing one as a suicide assistant is what you want.

Understanding and courtesy are boundaries of contractual
civilization. Those unfit to abide or survive deserve to perish,
and though we might complain that nature is cruel, it is man's
stupidity that causes problems to be handled incompetently.

Neither sailors nor power boaters may avoid nature, and all must
grant to others those rights and that respect that they desire for
themselves before there is hope that they may be granted what they
desire for themselves. All must make allowances for slips and yips
and snags, and the fact that a small problem can become a large one
if the spectators press too close, and their fellow golfer loses his
grip.

In short, sailors sail or perish, some power boaters don't care
about anything except speed and power, and damn the rest. These
eventually reap what they sow. Then, they complain and try to hide
the obvious behind a technical argument.

The best solution would be for those not understanding to take a
cruise on a sailboat during a bluster. Their respect might improve,
provided they did not soil themselves. Their perspective might
improve, nonetheless.

Terry K

"Terry Spragg" wrote in message
...

Jonathan Ganz wrote:

In article et,
Bill McKee bmckee=at-ix.netcom.com wrote:


"DSK" wrote in message
et...


Bill McKee wrote:


Probably like a lot if sailors, you turn when ever you want, and then
yell at a power boat for impeding you.

Probably like a lot of motorboaters, you have no clue what's involved in
sailing, and think that all boats can be driven like a car.

DSK


I know what is involved with sailing. Married a good sailors daughter
and used to windsurf. But too many "sailors" figure they have the right
of way as they have a sailboat. I have had "sailors" do a 90 degree in
front of me when lifting the sails and the iron sail is still running,
and then yell at me. They would yell even louder if I collided with them
and when they had to pay enormous sums of money to me.


What's your point? If you know the Rules of the Road, there's never
much doubt about who should give way.


Surely not the overtaking vessel? Must a vessel desiring to turn from
main channel to side route stand on past a harbour entrance because a
zoomer wants to pass between them and their port?

Could we invent turn signals for slow boats, to give those with power,
speed and a lack of courteous patience a more easily notable legal signal
of intentions to turn, given that noisy power vessels make horn signals
adequate for listening and watching sailors inaudible aboard kilowatt
stereo disco boats? Or would such unauthorized lighting distract starlet
eyed go boaters from their fore deck ornaments?

Do these power mongers not understand the need of sailors to turn into the
wind to hoist their main sails?

Nor is there much doubt as to how hard it is to hit a planing power boat
with a sail boat, and vice versa.

Honest savvy power boaters well know the paranoid schizophrenia they have
forced on sailors and the bad reputation their wild mannered birds of
similar feathering have cultivated for them, well know the secret rabid
detestation that fires every sailor's killing passions and undeniable mad
obsession with reach ramming power boats who so foolishly come so close as
to make possible such sweet, aching temptation to chisel yet another notch
in their stems, and well know to stay away, as they should from a starved
tiger on a short chain.

Those who actually get rammed by sailboats have no one to blame but
themselves, (even the law of the sea agrees,) unless their canny X's have
topped the limit on their gas cards, and the grinning fates deliver them
to their well deserved, slow motion fates. Gradual horror overtake them,
woe by tides and drift the planing challenged fume less speed boater who
dallies wake less long enough for the long plotting sailors' pack to
organize, isolate, surround and subsume their deserving victims, should
Poseidon aid them and grant conspiring seas, wind and grant calls for
rights to starboard tack.

Like a wounded fawn in the teeth of crippled octogenarian wolves, surely
their vessels shall be dismembered and dispersed without trace, like
diseased baby seals in the toothless jaws of tired and gallopless killer
whales.

Aarrgghh! The longer takes the victory, the sweeter the vine of triumph,
the sweeter the smoke of the roasting. May they all overheat;^)

Terry K