Roger Long wrote:
There has been a Canadian flag mega yacht in the 150 - 200 class named
"Floridan" tied up in Portland for the past couple weeks. It's about
as big a private yacht as I've seen up this way in the past couple
years.

I was heading back in today solo and close hauled in a good fresh
breeze with the boat working hard under two reefs and hoping to clear
Ram Island without having to make a short tack. The "Floridan" was
coming out and settled on exactly the opposing course with her
stemhead exactly lined up with her mast. I watched for a long time
thinking they must take a slight deviation out into the 3000 or so
miles of open water to their starboard but the angle never changed.

Finally, at about half a mile, I eased the sheets and bore off until I
could at least could see a little angle on the hull and it wasn't like
staring directly down the sights of a shotgun from the wrong end.
Cursing the loss of 100 yards on what was going to be a pretty tight
squeak to clear the island, I watched her pass about 100 feet off my
beam. Then, I got to deal with the wake of a large displacement hull
going nearly hull speed on top of an already considerable sea.

The captain was standing on the bridge wing having a ciggy with the
autopilot on and never even waved.

As someone said, Yes, the rich are different than you and I.

Keep an eye out for this turkey if you're cruising downeast. It's a
bad one.

--

Roger Long

I hate to say this, but it's just common sense to stay away from large
vessels, right of way or not. Their are plenty of people who felt they
had the right of way that were killed in the process. Try not to join
their ranks.

As far as wakes, if you don't like them, I would suggest finding
another hobby, they are a fact of life on the water. If I had a nickel
for everytime I had to deal with a sailboat that wanted to run under
sail, in a narrow waterway, loaded with boats, and wanted everyone to
get out of his way, I'd never have to work another day in my life. My
point being, their are problem children on both the power and sail
sides, let's all try not to be one of them.