Build yourself a boat and do a lap, crazy or not?

Roly they truely do get off on it. There is a reason that most Coxswains in the CG are under 25. Too young to realize that really bad things can happen. Fortunately they get some of the best training in the world to do thier job.

For the record. Im not against this particular fellow doing this. According to his blog he says he has some seagoing experiance. Enough, at least, to have some idea what he is getting into.

Being the holder of a US Merchant Marine Document, I probably have a diffrent take on governments role in our maritime world. However I have seen a lot of it as positive. The Jones act, in the US stopped shipping companies from basically inslaving mariners in thier employ and still has teeth to this day. The SOLAS ( Safty Of Life At Sea) act, was a direct result of the Titanic not having enough life boats on board. Collision Regulations, (COLREGs) Took what was many diffrent bouy color and marking schemes worldwide and gave us what we use today. Red right returning to port. The Government has played a very signifgant role in makeing boating safer then driving your car.

K9

 

Man, I remember when COLREGs didn't exist and it was confusing. Interestingly enough the old timers of the day, got around just fine and I learned to do so as well. We learned our local waterways, but this was no help to vessels, particularly of limited maneuverability and/or draft that didn't know the area. For the most part, in this country the intrusion has been minimal.

Common sense stuff has helped, such as maximum loading and power labeling for recreational craft, PFD requirements, fire suppression, signaling devices, etc. I still am surprised there isn't an anchor requirement for recreational craft and the "alternate power" requirement is pretty weak. A 36" paddle on a 23' offshore raised helm, cuddy cabin is ridiculous, but passes a USCG safety inspection.

Also, the same mandates that forced the automotive industry to build much better products, which incidentally produced more reliable products, is now tolling on the recreational marine industry, making these much more reliable. I'm old enough to remember what "outboard" really used to mean. In the old days it meant you were out, on board your board, trying to get the damn thing to start. This was such a common problem with outboards, that most serious boaters had two, a main engine and a small kicker, which was often used to bring the unwilling to start main engine, back to shore, so it could be worked on. I restored a unique little hardtop cruiser a few years ago. It was all original, about one of the most original boats I've ever seen. It was built in 1962 and still carried it's sequentially numbered Lark 30's on her transom. The boat wasn't really big enough to warrant twins, but in that era, twins were pretty much mandatory.

These regulations involve common sense and product safety, which are usually steps forward.

Licensing drivers carries a different argument and I can see both sides. On one, it suggests the driver has absorbed enough information to prove their abilities at the helm and in understanding the rules of the road. This may be necessary in the near future as most aren't especially familiar with boats anymore, so training can address this. In my youth, everyone had a boat (I was raised on an island), we all knew how to operate them and quite expertly too, even my mother, which came as a big surprise to me when I was 6 and decided I would take the family cruiser out for a spin (I was a precious kid). This was my first recollection of a serious butt whipping too.

On the other hand, licensing also suggests people can't operate boats safely, without some underpaid, over worked, likely not especially skilled, county employee instructor telling them they've passed a course, which was designed and approved by a committee of lawyers, politicians, marketing exec's and possibly a boating expert or two.

I do see merit in requiring proof of the completion of a Power Squadron Small Boat Handling Course, if you've purchased a new boat or gotten a ticket on the water. I don't currently see the funds available to pay for uniform state licensing, nor an infrastructure capable of handling the volume. DMV could do it and certainly is geared for just such, but most are maxed or close to it now.

In the end, I'd like to see merit systems, no licensing or required courses, unless you show a need or personally desire it. This permits folks to use their common sense and natural willingness to learn and keeps big brother out of our personal lives. I've personally forced folks to take a small boat handling course and am proud of it. It was usually following a stupid incident, like trying to launch their new boat without a clue about the transom plug. I calm them down, after yanking their under powered rig up the ramp, and use a soft toned riot act routine on them about the hidden dangers of venturing farther from shore then you (or your wife) can swim back to. They guys usually "lock up" much like scolding your kids, but you work the wife, with a well placed and worded horror story and she beats him to death about it, until he goes down to the Power Squadron.

 

PAR your pretty old ain't you? can remember when Colregs (collision regulations to some) didn't exist! Whew! Deep respect (if true) I do however find your joint statements (true in two different posts) to the respect that if a rescuer gets hurt it's his fault and that it is the obligation at sea of every seafarer on hear a distress to go to the aid of the victim!

If you proceed, as required, in heavy weather there's a good chance you will get hurt in some way in effecting the rescue! OK you assess the risk, but bottom line if there's somebody in trouble the normal human action is to try to help - even at risk to yourself! Or do you get there and just standby to watch the poor sod die?? bit ghoulish ain't it?

Surely it would be better to ensure that the intended victim is capable of looking after himself before he goes (OK there are variables, and chances that it may go wrong, but as all accidents are caused by human failings is it not better to ensure that every precaution is taken first - you do that and there can be no objection to your going, you don't and there is!

 

I've been in that exact situation, arrive at the capsized yacht, beginning rescue operations when conditions broke down enough to discontinue and power to windward to protect the ship and crew. Yep, it's a bit ghoulish, but you have to respect the lives of your crew and keep the boat under you or no one is getting back to shore. The boat was lost and some crew did have to tread water for some hours, until conditions eased a bit and more aggressive measures could begin again. Their life raft was useless in those conditions, our attempts to offer something else just sent it down wind past them. We just had to hope, pray and stand to, until we had better options. We kept them in our leeward slick, tossed as much floatation as they could hold onto and tried everything we could, warps, drifting down with the hopes of a snatch and grab (an idea I was dead set against at the time, but relented from the pressure). Faced with fouling a single screw boat or lying off, losing crew of my own in futile attempts, I eventually made the call.

As for the COLREG's, they've always been around, but in my youth, not in the standardized form they are today. Markings varied wildly, depending on where you were, etc. The old timers seemed to understand the older marking methods, but it was difficult to learn without being under someone's wing.

 

Safe. in the US inland markings didnt come fully under Colregs untill 1972, or there abouts.

It was VERY confusing. GREEN BLACK GREEN Mid channel markers on the rivers.

K9

 

'ah! Cheers Kay9, you got some big stretches of inland water over there which kinda surprises me - over here we hit the bank kinda soon (inland) so it don't matter to much!!

PAR your wrong, they haven been around for ever! Pre the "Halifax" explosion there wasn't any which is why the Halifax explosion happened (I'll let you go look for it, it was some few weeks ago - 19canteen or thereabout! Ammunition ship ran into somebody else - helluva bang, bodies and stuff everywhere up to quite a distance) and Collregs were invented!

 

Safe, I meant in my time. I do know of the Halifax, quite a mess. I even saw a Discovery Channel documentary about it once.

 

MMMMMmmmmmmmm! Sorry PAR sometimes I do have difficulty reading plain English! That's the trouble with being English, nobody believes you can read or understand the language!!


The way some people (who should know better?) treat it maybe they are right!!

 

I apparently had a similar difficulty the other night. At least this is how it was explained by the "one that must be obeyed" . . .

 

Then you must tell me the name of your drink!

 

I'm a beer guy and life would be much easier if she drank as well.

 

Wouldn't it just mate, wouldn't it just!!

Even better if they all did - occasionally!

 

Safe, that could be a double edged sword come two in the morning when we start looking good to them . . .

 

Yeah guess your right there PAR, could be extremely nasty, lucily I'm a bigger pisshead than her - at the moment, so feeling no pain is the order of the day! Thank Heaven!

 

This thread has been well and truly killed, but if anybody is still interested the "boat" has been launched and pictures are on the wooden boat forum.

Thread on the Woodenboat Forum
Pics of it floating
More pics

The beam attachments look ..........interesting.