slide wrote:
Armond Perretta wrote:
Quoted from the Style Section of the Sunday New York Times of 16 Oct 09:

"As a teenager, I once went on a date with a green-eyed boy. He sailed us
across Narragansett Bay, then stopped under the Newport Bridge and
dared me
to jump overboard. Without hesitating, I stood on the stern and
leaped. The
current beneath the bridge was so strong that within seconds I was
dragged
far from the boy and the boat. I saw his stunned face, his tanned
shirtless
body quickly working the lines to come to my rescue."

Current selectively took swimmer but not boat. Typical NYTimes accuracy
and research.


That would be the obvious observation. However, having spent several
days last summer on a mooring a few hundred yards South of the bridge, I
can say that the current is strong, swirly, and perturbed by the wakes
of many boats large and small, not to mention the bridge structure
itself. I can easily imagine the boat and swimmer getting separated
rather quickly.

BTW, the article does not specify whether the boat "stopped" motion
through the water, or relative to the bottom, or had simply eased the
sheets an was drifting downwind. Its quite easy for small boat to make
a knot drifting, giving the impression of being separated by the current.

We had been planing to stay in Newport for a weekend, but were told by
another boater that Jamestown was vastly superior. That might be so,
because Newport can be a very sloppy mess on a summer weekend, but
Jamestown was certainly not calm, being totally open to all passing traffic.