"RG" wrote in message
news:RMrzb.23304$o9.11675@fed1read07...

I've been reading this thread and can't understand how boat wakes can
destroy a bridge. I think I read that parts of the bridge are falling
off. How do boats manage to do that?

A $27,000 wake fine in this case is insane.

The best example is Venice, Italy. Boat wakes are literally eating away
at
the city's infrastructure. Therefore, they have very severe no wake
policies in place. In order to film the high speed boat chase scenes in
the
recent remake of the movie "The Italian Job", the producers of the movie
had
to get very brief, very explicit, and I would imagine very expensive
waivers
from the city. Not hard to imagine how the same forces could cause damage
to a concrete bridge with it's foundation in the water and constantly
being
subjected to nearby high speed boat traffic.

RG



The major problem in Venice, is subsidence. They pumped so much fresh water
from under the city over the 1000 years, that the islands that the city are
built on subsided under sea level. You can see beautiful marble steps that
are at least 4' underwater. So the boat wakes go in the first floor of
buildings that originally were high and dry. And the first floor was not
build as a seawall.