MacGregorSailors.com

On my last outing of the summer, i was bare-poled, and had just shut off my motor approaching the end of the dock very slowly. Suddenly a PWC shot around me, and took possesion of my intended berth, forcing me to swerve toward a power boat on my port side. With much embarassment my brother was forced to push against the power boat to avoid a "slow" collision. The PWC didn't even look around,or apologize. Because of it's small size he could easily have gone further down the dock, allowing room for a larger less agile craft, ..."mine". He was on the starboard side so I guess he had the right of way, but what are the rules at most marinas? First come, First serve? It doesn't really matter, as I would have crushed him, so I had to swerve, but is there something like a laser light showing your commited, or a horn or what are the protocols?

The overtaken boat has the right of way. (That's you in this case). You could possibly have given him 5 blasts with the horn to tell him his manuever was not acceptable to you. However; many boaters just don't know the rules and don't even use common courtesy.

IMO, such an act has nothing whatsoever to do with rules of the road, and everything to do with lack of common courtesy. Freguently those who lack common courtesy also don't have a clue about the rules of the road anyway, so giving him five blasts on the horn is likely to be pretty ineffective.

I've often thought one of those previous era, rail-mounted swivel cannons would be a useful addition to my Mac on such occasions, but in all seriousness, there's not much you can do. The water equivalent of "road rage" is not a situation in which you're likely to come out ahead. I've heard it said that some surprisingly large percentage of irresponsible PWC operators are intoxicated, so you might consider taking down the registration number and reporting it to Harbor Police, Coast Guard, etc as well as the marina operator.

Many PWC operators are responsible and courteous, but enough aren't that in our local area there's legislation in the works which will either ban them outright or severely restirct their operation.

You're powerless to do anything. Your only course of action is revenge.

Some pictures from last summer's photo album.





Here is the whole story. Apparently, it involves Frank....before he quit smoking cigars.

It's obvious these guys are morons. They are misusing the AIM-9 air to air missle when they should have been using the proper Harpoon surface to surface missle. Jeez!

I like the idea of a guided, jerk-seeking missle. Or maybe I could combine this with the idea expressed earlier that my anchor storage tube could be modified to launch the anchor some distance out in front of the boat like a mortar. Combined with some sort of float system, I could launch the rode out in front where it coud work like the old "rope stretched across the trail between two trees" trick they used to do in the cowboy movies.

I think it was at a sailing (maybe a fishing) website, but I once saw a t-shirt with a picture of a PWC in a gun sight crosshairs. It said, "If you can read this, you're in range."



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Moe

Fabulous Photos Dimitri! and Mark, we can always count on you to "say it" in a good graphic.

Another reason to love this Site.

Rich

Dimitri's "here is the whole story" link has that T-shirt at the top.

Not the same one I saw, but it expresses the sentiment just as well.

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Moe

Dimitri - priceless

A little communication might help. Most boaters do respond to this. If he is drunk, you will then know and can report it.

Chip Hindes wrote:It's obvious these guys are morons. They are misusing the AIM-9 air to air missle when they should have been using the proper Harpoon surface to surface missle. Jeez!

Now if only I could figure out a way for my Radar to track a single object, send continuous wave illumination and then guide a Radar missle to impact....Moe I need your help, lol.

Jeff

Many years ago I was traveling with a business partner through Oklahoma City. He had a friend in OK City who operated a manufacturing business that had no sign on the building and explosive devices on the doors to keep people from entering alive.

To make a long story short, the company manufactured boats for governments and the owner was a retired CIA person. I saw attack boats and 8 man submarines, all with weapons that would make the NRA breath heavy. I saw videos of attack boats being tested by the CIA in the Gulf with "puff the magic dragon" guns designed to clear the landing zone quickly as special troops came ashore.

It is too bad that there is not an option for this type of hardware for Macs. I for one would like to get the attention of Jet Skis.

I never shut the motor off until the boat secured.
Hubert