Expidia
Commander
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2006
- Messages
- 2,368
Re: Anyone ever see a boat flip over ?
All good comments . . . thx
Following a ferry in is something I never thought of. There are 3 or 4 going across in Champlain in different areas too.
There are many, many bays and Islands on Champlain that's why I boat here so much. But even when you're only a mile away from land, once the wind kicks up sometimes it's like being 5 miles away!
I asked the question not to push my boat to it's limits, I'm not that brave. So I figured with so many members experiences here a few might have experienced situations where it could give me a better idea of what my boats limits are in a heightened level of severe weather.
I don't even have any idea of how sharp or fast a turn could be made on this boat before it would flip or swamp.
About 5 years ago I had a 17 foot square back Old Town Discovery Sport boat. Looks like a big canoe only wider. This boat was very stable. I could stand in it while fishing it was so stable. Had a 5 hp 4 stroke Honda on it.
Used this set up for 5 years.
One day on Lake George my Daughter and I were fishing and then cruising around. The seas were calm. We were only about 100 yards from shore. She was driving and all of a sudden the wind picked up and 3 waves came at us from 3 different directions. About 2-3 footers each.
In the span of TWO SECONDS we found ourselves ejected from the boat and thrown into the water and watching the boat (still running) driving away.
In hindsight, I made 5 or 6 crucial mistakes which could have cost us both our lives. Once we put our life jackets on Mistake #1, but they were sitting at our feet and they wound up next to us in the water, but what if we were knocked unconscious?
Lake is 32 miles, boat could have wound up anywhere. Boat chose to come back 10 minutes later still running and started a wide circle around us which with each pass the circle kept getting smaller. It was just like a SHARK circling us and coming in for the KILL.
So as you can see I owned that boat for 5 years and did not know it's limits.
But I quickly found out the hard way what it's limits were.
After my Wife and I took a boating course 2 years ago (in NY one needs to take that course to drive a jet ski).
This course was great and enlightened me on the 5 or 6 things I had been doing wrong (probably closer to 10) that would have prevented this type of accident.
One thing always stuck in my mind that the instructor impressed upon us. He said when an accident happens it happens in a matter of seconds and you will never know it's coming. He said the only thing you can do is take the proper preventive steps to lessen the chances of it happening.
This rung loudly in my mind because this was EXACTLY what happened to us. I've been boating for 30 years. I was the Captain of that boat. I was so far off on what I DIDN"T KNOW about boating it scares me to this day.
I prefer Lake Champlain now because it's so big and you rarely come near other boats. Lake George has something like 12,000 registered boats on it. Most of these boats are driven by downstate weekenders who are obnoxious As*holes or drunks, who think nothing of passing my 15 foot boat 30 feet away at full speed in their 20-25 foot boats. Only to turn around and give you the finger when you try and wave them off.
The Sheriffs are useless on this lake for these type of violations.
Forget about getting their numbers because they are going by you at 30 mph and up.
What scares me the most on crowded lakes and launch areas is that if I don't know enough about boating after 30 years . . . this means to me that there are hundreds of boats being driven by inexperienced or no care boaters who are just AIMING their 3000 lbs plus boats like a bullet and the news headlines proves this out every week somewhere.
Unfortunately, it's the same for cars too!
All good comments . . . thx
Following a ferry in is something I never thought of. There are 3 or 4 going across in Champlain in different areas too.
There are many, many bays and Islands on Champlain that's why I boat here so much. But even when you're only a mile away from land, once the wind kicks up sometimes it's like being 5 miles away!
I asked the question not to push my boat to it's limits, I'm not that brave. So I figured with so many members experiences here a few might have experienced situations where it could give me a better idea of what my boats limits are in a heightened level of severe weather.
I don't even have any idea of how sharp or fast a turn could be made on this boat before it would flip or swamp.
About 5 years ago I had a 17 foot square back Old Town Discovery Sport boat. Looks like a big canoe only wider. This boat was very stable. I could stand in it while fishing it was so stable. Had a 5 hp 4 stroke Honda on it.
Used this set up for 5 years.
One day on Lake George my Daughter and I were fishing and then cruising around. The seas were calm. We were only about 100 yards from shore. She was driving and all of a sudden the wind picked up and 3 waves came at us from 3 different directions. About 2-3 footers each.
In the span of TWO SECONDS we found ourselves ejected from the boat and thrown into the water and watching the boat (still running) driving away.
In hindsight, I made 5 or 6 crucial mistakes which could have cost us both our lives. Once we put our life jackets on Mistake #1, but they were sitting at our feet and they wound up next to us in the water, but what if we were knocked unconscious?
Lake is 32 miles, boat could have wound up anywhere. Boat chose to come back 10 minutes later still running and started a wide circle around us which with each pass the circle kept getting smaller. It was just like a SHARK circling us and coming in for the KILL.
So as you can see I owned that boat for 5 years and did not know it's limits.
But I quickly found out the hard way what it's limits were.
After my Wife and I took a boating course 2 years ago (in NY one needs to take that course to drive a jet ski).
This course was great and enlightened me on the 5 or 6 things I had been doing wrong (probably closer to 10) that would have prevented this type of accident.
One thing always stuck in my mind that the instructor impressed upon us. He said when an accident happens it happens in a matter of seconds and you will never know it's coming. He said the only thing you can do is take the proper preventive steps to lessen the chances of it happening.
This rung loudly in my mind because this was EXACTLY what happened to us. I've been boating for 30 years. I was the Captain of that boat. I was so far off on what I DIDN"T KNOW about boating it scares me to this day.
I prefer Lake Champlain now because it's so big and you rarely come near other boats. Lake George has something like 12,000 registered boats on it. Most of these boats are driven by downstate weekenders who are obnoxious As*holes or drunks, who think nothing of passing my 15 foot boat 30 feet away at full speed in their 20-25 foot boats. Only to turn around and give you the finger when you try and wave them off.
The Sheriffs are useless on this lake for these type of violations.
Forget about getting their numbers because they are going by you at 30 mph and up.
What scares me the most on crowded lakes and launch areas is that if I don't know enough about boating after 30 years . . . this means to me that there are hundreds of boats being driven by inexperienced or no care boaters who are just AIMING their 3000 lbs plus boats like a bullet and the news headlines proves this out every week somewhere.
Unfortunately, it's the same for cars too!
