Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
Do you know how to run your boat? No - really, I'm wondering if YOU know how to run YOUR boat? I sense a little hesitation in your response so I'll answer for you, "NO YOU DON'T!" I know this because I've been watching you all my life and it would seem that you still haven't got a clue. I've watched you do the dumbest things with that vessel of yours and it's amazing you haven't killed yourself or someone else, and I wish that the salesman who sold it to you would have done more after the sale than toss you the keys and head off to the to closest bank while you headed off to the closest ramp. I know you have your boating course certificate, but apparently you either slept through class and paid off the person grading the exams, or you just forgot everything when you walked out of the door, because you obviously don't know a thing about operating a boat!
Okay, I know, that you know, that I'm not talking specifically about you, couldn't be, you never do stupid stuff with your boat and always run it just the way it's supposed to be run, and maybe you're right - maybe. The thing is, we all goof up now and again - zig when we should zag, miss a buoy and end up in shallow water, or make a little more wake than maybe we should. But the goings-ons I've seen you do are not just "oops" moments, they're genuine "I have no idea what I'm doing" kind of stuff.
So do you know what you're doing? It's a fair question that everyone should ask themselves and try to answer honestly. Don't worry, your answer is safe with you, and you don't have to tell a soul. But I do think that in order to help keep from steering themselves into too much trouble it's important for all boaters to realize how much they know - and don't know, about running their boat, and while there's not enough space in this entire publication to describe everything I've seen you do wrong with your boat, let me highlight a few of your bad habits.
First off: You seem to have a problem knowing how far forward or back your throttle should be set. Most of the time I see you driving a boat that should be either run on plane or at an idle speed. But for some reason you seem to like operating it somewhere in between at more of a "plowing" speed where the bow is riding high and the stern squatting low. You've got so much white water behind your transom that it looks like you're being followed by an avalanche, and your boat is churning up about as big a wake as it possibly can. Oh yeah, and if it matters to you, you're burning more fuel, drawing more water, and putting more strain on your engine than at any other throttle setting.
Certainly there are times when plowing along at eight or so knots is what you've got to do, but if that's the speed you normally run your boat to and fro, you really need to learn about running either on plane or at a moderate idle speed. Since you obviously don't know about this and might be wondering how to tell if you are plowing the water, just look at your wake. If it's big and very wide close to the boat then you need to either speed up or slow down!
Also, I've been wanting to ask why I so often see you running around with most, if not all, of your passengers crowded up at the bow of your boat. I most often see you doing it when you're in your "bow rider" boat, but regardless of the name, having everyone sitting up front rather than properly distributing their weight between the bow and the stern only increases the chances that you'll bury the bow in a wave and swamp or at the very least take a few waves over the bow that soak everyone aboard. I notice that you do the same thing when you're running your pontoon deck boat. With so many of your passengers up front you look like a snow plow going through the water. I thought you would have learned your lesson when you tried to go under the RT.50 bridge that day when the current was running so strong and you nose-dived into a couple waves that covered your deck and washed your cooler and life jackets floated out of the boat - but I guess not.
Another thing I've watched you do is to allow passengers to ride on the bow of your boat with their legs dangling over the side. This is proof that you're not only a ding-dong but also that you probably shouldn't be running a boat at all. Not only is this practice extremely dangerous, it's also illegal.
And how about all those times you ran up on a sandbar and tried to get off by powering ahead with your motor. Even from a distance I could see the brown roostertail of sand and mud as you plowed a furrow through the bottom. Just so you know, it's really best just to shut your motor off, tilt it up and push your way off.
Then there are all the times you went charging past me in the marina pulling a big wake in your 50-footer. You claim it won't go any slower at idle because you're turning such big wheels, but guess what, by bumping it in and out of gear you can slow that big rig as much as you want and not rock the rest of us tied up in our slips!
Finally, if you hadn't slept through your boating safety course you might have some idea about the navigation rules aka "rules of the road" but apparently you did - so obviously you don't! So every time you and I are navigating anywhere near each other I have no idea what you're going to do when we get close. I usually just try and stay far away from you but often the narrow channel won't allow it so I just hope and pray that we can pass without mishap. Even if you don't know the rules, if you would just pay attention to your surroundings you would make the waters a lot safer around you!
So this brings me to all the lame-brain things I've seen you do at the boat ramp. Oh no wait a minute - there are not enough pages in this paper to cover all those antics. Let's just save them for my next book! ยง
