Eisboch wrote:
"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 16 Aug 2007 08:14:17 -0400, "Reginald P. Smithers III"
wrote:

LOL, Harry you sure seem to be hung up on this transom thing.
You noticed that also. Methinks he is a mite sensitive perhaps.

Not to worry though, Harry has told us many times how experienced he
is and there's no reason to doubt it that I know of.

http://www.newsargus.com/news/archiv...escued_at_sea/



My comments on this transom thing is based on personal experience. I
swamped a small boat once, back in my teenaged years and it was on a fresh
water pond, flat as a pancake with no other influences on the boat other
than my stupid operation of it.

I was pulling a skier and she fell, but didn't immediately let go of the tow
line. I immediately made a hard turn, while pulling the throttle back. The
resultant wake wave hit the boat on the stern quarter and filled the boat
with well over a foot of water in a nanosecond. There was no way I could
move it with the engine without more water pouring over the open transom.
The engine then quit, the boat became extremely unstable, in danger of
flipping so I slid into the water. The skier and I then swam back to the
nearby shore, slowly pulling the swamped boat with us with the tow line.

When it happens on a small boat, it happens fast.

Eisboch


Yes, when I was about 10, I momentarily swamped an 8' plywood pram which
we had overloaded with a friend's 10 hp outboard. Boat would only plane
with a friend in the bow. Stopped the boat suddenly, wake came rushing
over the little stern. Lesson learned: when you come off plane in a
small boat, goose the accelerator a little to stay ahead of the oncoming
collapsing wake.

On the other hand, if you ram your 49' trawler onto one of the uncharted
underwater rocks around the Thimble Islands, guess what? You're probably
going to sink the boat. That 9' tall transom won't save you.