Quote:
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Originally Posted by Belmont Resident
I''m curious as to what defines an offshore boat that you speak of?
Size?
Speed?
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Offshore boats can be any size. All are overpowered for normal transportation, unsuited for protected, recreational, and
residential waters, and fully suited for a wide-open ocean environment just offshore.
Offshore boats are powered by one or more truck-based engines, most often inadequately muffled. They are unsuited for protected, recreational,
residential waters, but fully suited for wide-open ocean environments just offshore. On most days, just one or two can transform formerly-idyllic Lake Winnipesaukee bay and harbor environments into a noisy, smelly, Interstate.
Offshore boats are gas-guzzlers. Offshore operators do not adjust their fuel-mix for air quality. They spread the gaseous waste-products of fossil fuel -- mixed and burned at up to one gallon/minute with New Hampshire's formerly-pure air. They leave behind a large, continuous haze of ozone-producing toxins unsuited for
any residential lake --
certainly unsuited for children with allergies and asthma. (Sometimes lead is added to the fuel -- adding
vaporous lead to the lake's air). But
acceptable in ocean environments just offshore.
Offshore boat operators
cannot see over their own bows while accelerating, making them unreliable sharers of recreational and
residential waters -- but acceptably suited for wide-open ocean environments offshore.
Offshore boats often operate at high speeds: At just 60 MPH, they make the 150-foot rule of protected recreational waters
obsolete every two seconds. At high speeds, they require more "user lake-space", leaving lesser boats with a corresponding drop in personal space for other recreation. When they use their "wide-open-throttles", they should be in "wide-open spaces" -- like offshore in open-ocean environments.
Offshore boats have a very poor fatality record on Lake Winnipesaukee.
Fatalities should be rare on protected, recreational -- and residential -- waters. Our Forum Archives are full of fatal Offshore-boat cases.
Some have collided with lesser boats, forested shores, one another, and two have had "personal performance accidents" (with- and by- themselves) on Winnipesaukee (one with injured passengers and one operator fatality). One case had an Offshore boat leave a lake
airborne, and collide with a pickup truck on Interstate 77! (A Winnipesaukee waterfront
home was struck by an Offshore -- with two fatalities). Three cases, in as many boating seasons, had the operator
leave the scene of
two fatalities and
five seriously-injured boaters -- involving amputations. Another case had an Offshore strike several boats before ejecting its one passenger -- the "throttleman" and ultimately fatally injuring the "captain". We all remember the Meredith case, of course.
Offshore boats can be seen rafted in gatherings of "Mutual Admiration Clubs" -- a peculiarity of certain types of tall, but graying boys and their costly, but obsolescent, motor engineering. (Also see Harley and Corvette fanciers).
On any August weekend, there
could be seven Offshores per square mile on Winnipesaukee -- given the latest estimates of their numbers on the Forum. They should never have been sold here -- and don't belong here.
(Prepared with apologies to the hundreds of thousands of sailing kindred spirits who navigate the globe daily without refueling -- the
real offshore-boaters).