Hazelnut,
Your problem is not that someone else is slinging mud, your problem is that someone is finally slinging it back. SOBNH has been outed for the go-fast club that it really is, led by the drinking scofflaw that he really is. And that really stings. You guys tried sooo hard to paint a face of legitimacy on the group...tagging along with the Power Squadron and everything...all for naught...it didn't work. Smelly feet still stink through a clean sock.
While you guys are watching cartoons and getting some amusement, the good people of NH are reading their Sunday papers and getting an education;
http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll.../-1/FOSOPINION
Election not a mandate to repeal speed limits
Sunday, December 26, 2010
A bill has been introduced to repeal our boating speed limit and replace it with the vague notion that boaters need only limit their speeds to what they themselves feel is "reasonable and prudent"... similar to the Coast Guard law used on the open seas.
The bill is sponsored by legislators from southern New Hampshire. Not a single legislator from the Lakes Region, where the speed limit has been so popular, agreed to sign on.
This bill was submitted at the prompting of a group having the audacity to name themselves "Safe Boaters," an apparent reorganization of the go-fast-be-loud crowd formerly calling themselves "Recreational Boaters." What will they call themselves next? When will they admit that they are really just "Fast Loud Selfish Boaters"? I guess that moniker wouldn't fit on the bumper stickers.
The concept of allowing boaters to decide for themselves how fast is "reasonable and prudent" is the only thing that can work on the ocean. Enforcing a set speed limit on the open seas is impossible. The best that can be done there is to have a law that can be applied after the fact, to decide whether an accident was the result of a crime.
But Lake Winnipesaukee is not the ocean. It is a lake. Speed limits are enforceable here, they are working, and people have been obeying them. Allowing "thunder boaters" to decide for themselves how fast is "reasonable and prudent" is not necessary here, we can do much better than that, and we have been doing much better than that for three years. And with all the real issues our legislature has to worry about right now, is this something they should be mucking around with anyway?
Two years of a 45-mph speed limit law after a one year Marine Patrol "informal test" have proven that those very few very aggressive cowboys who caused so much mayhem respect a black and White speed limit. Only twenty-some speeding tickets had to be issued over this period, proving what those that use the lake saw, what most people expected... how much more civil and "recreational" boating on Winnipesaukee was for all once again, and how people obey laws that are clear and unambiguous. Why even think about changing that? Especially with all the serious issues our legislators need to address.
The problem on Winnipesaukee has never been the responsible boater behind the helm of a fast boat... it has been the irresponsible cowboy who always wants to see what he can get away with. Cowboys are just big kids. Kids need to be given curfews and defined limits ... 9 o'clock ... four cookies ... take a bath. They cannot decide from themselves. They are not mature or responsible enough.
Telling a cowboy "Just go as fast as you feel is reasonable and prudent" is like telling a kid to just eat as much candy as he thinks he should. Kids have a different idea of what "reasonable and prudent" means than we do, because we have adult minds, and they have adolescent minds.
Last summer, boating traffic on Winnipesaukee was as balanced and civil as we have seen for over 20 years. All of us got to enjoy our boats and enjoy the lake. Kids camps were sailing and canoeing again. Dealers were selling canoes and kayaks again. Waterside restaurants were struggling to find dock space again. Sailing clubs held regattas and sailing schools again. Rowers in skulls were out there in numbers never seen before. Fathers were taking their sons fishing again. And off-shore boats were still out there, going 45 mph, which any boater knows is pretty darn fast on the water. No longer were the majority of family boaters being ruled by the aggressive boating of such a small minority, so why even think about going back? Especially with the real problems New Hampshire has for our elected officials to fix.
The election of Republicans to Concord in such a landslide was not a mandate to repeal such a functional law that even Republican voters favor so overwhelmingly. We elected Republicans to return fiscal responsibility to New Hampshire, not to return "thunder boating" to Winnipesaukee. Cowboys behind the wheels of thunder boats are not the "Republican" standard. That standard is embodied in the father who wants to get behind the wheel of his runabout to take his family for an ice cream, or take his kids tubing. Now he can do that again. Please don't go back to the mayhem that so many hundreds of people described...the mayhem that the current law virtually eliminated.
Those who want Coast Guard rules should go to the ocean. Besides, there are important matters facing New Hampshire right now, and unleashing the "thunder boaters" to terrorize us once again is not one of them. That is not what we voted for.