wrote
I maintain the opinion that a lot of these guys are so busy fiddling
with their computers and electronics they pay no attention at all to
where they're going.


That's part of the problem. I've even had a sailboat come within four
feet of ramming us, with a man in the cockpit staring angrily at us,
until he finally stood up and shouted (from about 6 feet away) "Can't
you see I'm on autopilot?"

However, I've also had a lot of boats that were being steered by humans
come very close to us when we're anchored. It may be a herd instinct,
the same as people speed up when you pass on the highway. In fact I've
had a professional captain delivering a 65-footer come within ten feet
of our anchored boat in an unmarked river 1/2 mile wide (unmarked
because it's 9' deep all the way across). When I called him on the radio
with a barely restrained 'What the F&&& are you doing?' he apologized
and said he hadn't meant to pass that close.


If their chartplotter interfaced with the autopilot is set to follow a
rhumb line from point A to point B, gawd help anybody unlucky enough to
be 15-yards to one side of the course or the other. Many of these
butt-heavy, under powered, prop tunneled monsters don't leave wakes,
they create small tsunamis.


And God forbid that they ever look back to see that they're pulling a
wake higher than their own transom.


Big Mike wrote:
I have heard the "looking at the electronics" theory before. It is true.
Heaven forbid these fools have to steer a little off course to avoid running
over some poor ******* in a kayak. It will only get worse as GPS systems
continue dropping in price.


It's happened. Off the coast of New Jersey a 60-footer ran over a
fishing boat and killed one of the men on board, while the owner of the
60-footer was said to not even be above decks (he claimed he was, but
was looking down "momentarily").


In my latest situation mentioned at the start of this thread, I was anchored
in a body of water far off to the side of the main channel that is rarely
piloted due to the amount of visible rocks. However, the minute I set up, it
immediately became the popular route. All were recreational boaters with
vessels in the 30' and under class. Most without navigation equipment but
fully armed with ignorance. Unbelievable...


I wish we had an anchorage surrounded by rocks. As it is, we can only
look for shallower water than most of the boneheads can run in.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King