On 29 Sep 2003 22:34:14 -0500, noah
wrote:

Perhaps a different angle on your post: You can throw as much wake as
you care to be responsible for...

This is true but it's always a judgement call and it's not uncommon to
be surprised by boats that are hidden beyond a bend or along shore.


I have no problem with large boats trying to "make way" in the NYS
barge canal. Most of them know their boats and try to throttle to an
efficient speed, without rocking the molars out of bystanders.

Yes,


I get a kick out of the "5 mph" marina zones, as one of my boats makes
less wake at 20mph than it does at 5mph. ...but I comply.

Yes again, this is mindless law at it's best, but remember that if you
throttled back to hull speed of perhaps 3 or 4 knots, you would leave
no wake at all.

I also
encounter "more money than brains" boaters that push a wall of water
in a 100' wide channel. If you're fishing in a jon boat at the time,
it can be an experience to remember.

This speaks to my point regarding appropriate boats for the
conditions. Would you take that same jon boat out onto Lake Ontario
with a summer thunderstorm pending? I hope not. Should you take your
jon boat to a body of water that may experience a large power boat
wake? That's your call. If I see you in time I'll slow down but
there's no guarantee.

I'm not sure what you mean about the "30 to 40% over hull speed for
most power cruisers..". The one's that give me, and others, trouble
are the guys with the 30+ footers at half throttle, pushing
4-plus-feet of water and a rolling wake.

Hull speed for a 36 footer is about 7 knots (1.32 x SQRT LWL where
LWL is waterline length). Above that speed the boat digs in and tries
to climb its own bow wave until it reaches planing speed which is well
above the canal limit so it never happens. Virtually all power boats
running at the canal speed limit are well over hull speed, and by
definition, creating a wake. The heavier the boat, the bigger the
wake.

In the Barge Canal, this can
flip a small boat,

It can flip a small boat anywhere which goes back to my point about
suitability. Would you take an open canoe into NY harbor and expect
no issues?

and do significant damage to docks and moored
boats. No law says that you have to be considerate, it just says that
you are responsible for your wake, and that's a *good* thing.

The only sure way to avoid damage in a high traffic area is to use a
boat lift or mooring whips. Too many people don't do that. I grew up
on the Oswego canal back in the 50s and 60s when there was still a
significant amount of commercial traffic. You should have seen the
wakes that the barges and tugs created. If you went out in a canoe or
small boat, that was your problem.