Originally Posted by elchase
I love speed boats. My uncle nearly won the Irwin Cup one year. He complained about the dirty boating tactics that cost him his victory right up until he passed away. My niece's husband has a beautiful Fountain that can allegedly do almost 70 on a calm day (though I'd never condone such a speed in a boat by a non-professional pilot). My neighbor's dad used to take us out in his beautiful old 28' polished mahogany Chris Craft "speed boat" and thrill us at almost 40MPH...what a rush that speed was in those days. That same neighbor (now dead from lung cancer) got a Checkmate with a whopping 80HP Merc when we were teens (he was a bit of a spoiled brat), and we used to ski in the races out of the Weirs. But 43MPH was just too "slow" to win against some of those suped up boats coming up from MA. Some of those boats could do over 50, but those races were much-publicized and the MP was well-positioned around the course to maintain safety.
Things were much different then. The lake was not so crowded, scheduled events where boats would be going so fast were always well-noticed, and there were so few of those "fast" boats that it was really not anything like the mayhem of recent years. And none of those boats weighed six tons.
Many of today's performance boats are simply gorgeous and, honestly, I'd hate to see them leave. But then, you guys are all promising that you are not going anywhere, so we don't need to worry about that, right? And nobody is asking you to leave. We just want you to operate at a speed that is appropriate for today's Lake Winnipesaukee. What's the problem with that? All the people of NH want you to do is boat on our crowded lake at a speed that is reasonable and appropriate for today's conditions. 45 MPH is a perfect limit. It's a good compromise between the 30-35MPH top-end speed of probably over 90% of the lake's boats and the 60-70MPH top end speed of the few. It still allows for every type of boating activity that is appropriate for our lake, and it has become the standard for boating speed limits around the country and proven itself effective over and over.
But again, I just don't understand all the fuss. You guys all boast of your refusal to recognize and obey the law. You claim that the MP is making no effort to enforce it. You say the law is not chasing you away or changing your behavior, yet we are all happy as pie. So why argue against a status quo that is making us all so happy? We finally found something that works fro almost everyone, let's just go with it.
And if some sore-losers are so mad that they are going to pull their beautiful boats out and take them elsewhere just to protest, then that is a shame, I'll truly miss the boats, but that's life. Those were probably the few idiots who created the problem in the first place and we are all better off without them. Too bad those drivers couldn't go and leave the boats.
NR,
Thanks, judging by that list, I am a true conservative. But here is another line that seems to fit your definition of a conservative (not mine), and to which I do not adhere;
If a conservative doesn't feel safe outside, he doesn't try to make it safer, he just stays home.
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