Ah, that brings back the memories. It was a hoot sitting in my
waterfront office at Woods Hole Oceanographic and watching boats hit
and miss that ledge. People would come down with the tide behind them
alarmed at the shore going by faster than the boat usually could move.
They would throttle back, and back, and back trying to slow down until
they were dead in the water and then wonder why nothing happened when
they turned the wheel to swing into the right channel.

Others would come down that nice lane of red and green buoys without a
chart and then head between the next red and green they saw. It's
just that one is in one channel and the other in the opposite leg.

Some of us once worked through a Labor Day weekend just so we could
watch the show.

I remember a big Dutch botter yacht towing a fair size I/O powerboat
with an outboard behind that and then a dinghy. He got fooled by the
current, slowed below steerageway, hit the buoy just before the ledge
broadside, bounced off, and then towed the whole assemblage upstream
and around the buoy (he must have used stout towlines) as the current
carried him before sticking briefly on the ledge and then heading off
into Vineyard Sound like he did this every day.

I wonder if there is a spot in New England where more boats, many with
very experienced skippers, have come to grief.

--

Roger Long