"Dave Hall" wrote in message

Intoxicated operators is a no-brainer, but why the beef with speedboats?
I, like many performance boaters, like things in the fast lane. There
are many myths proliferated relating to operation at speed. Most are a
bunch of hot air.

I dissagree. Alcohol slows reaction time. The faster the boat, the more that
reaction time comes into play. My boat is plenty fast, and you won't find
me out on a busy lake with any measurable B.A.C.

The guy with the duel 454's and duel martini's scares me a *lot* more than
the dood with a rowboat and duel six-packs. My cousin was *killed* when a
hotboat overtook him from the rear and drove up over his stern. It's a fact
of math that more HP plus more alcohol = more risk.

(Now if I'm up at Charlies for the weekend, we might go out for a late night
"booze cruise" where we TROLL out to the middle of the lake, in sight of
camp, turn up the CD player and do some pretty serious drinking and then
TROLL back to the dock at 3am. Legal - no, but there's no boat traffic (or
Marine patroll) at 3am. The only thing that ever scared us was the sound of
a boat approaching fast at WOT at 2am, I looked at Charlie and said "if he's
as drunk as we are - that ******* could plow right into us" We started
blinking our lights and stuff to make sure we were seen. )

I don't have a beef with speedboats - I *like* hotboats and am a paid member
over at the Scream & Fly boards. I don't like boats going fast with
impaired operators. And I don't feel threatened by a little rowboat with a
trolling motor. I don't feel real threatened by those "party barges" either,
though some of them are starting to get way too much HP on the back.

I don't fish much, but all I'm saying is that (in my opinion) people that
troll, fish, and drink aren't the real problem out there - as compared to
people that drink and go fast - or drink and pull rope-toys.

If I see a guy in a rowboat with a pole and a beer I'd be likely to go by
and say "catch anything much today?" If I see a speedboat with an operator
with a beer I'd be likely to say "so how many beers you had today?" it's
called *discretion*.

-W