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Old 04-11-2021, 12:11 PM   #3
XCR-700
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I generally find this to be a challenging situation based on the boat AND the operator.

Some hulls will travel at virtually no speed at all and be steerable, mostly modest size outboard powered boats.

Then you have our current most popular hulls, the 25' plus stern-drive powered bowriders, and depending on weight and hull design and other factors, they can be a handful to control at idle speed.

Jet boats/jet skis are their own challenge and some are horrific to steer at low speeds and they have no neutral making it almost impossible to actually stop and wait/drift,,,

And having never piloted a sail boat, I am often very impressed at the control some of their captains seem to have, but I still give them as much space as possible as it looks like a challenge to keep them under full control at wake speed.

I guess my point is that its very easy to write a paper rule and expect/demand compliance, but in my experience setting expectations for boat control in a no wake zone and then enforcing it is a challenging matter. You will see legitimate abusers, legitimate under-experienced operators that are building their experience, you have all kinds of challenges with the boats themselves. I think we need such standards and we need expectations and enforcement, but the reality is no wake will look very different in a lot of instances that wont be form of abuse, and in some cases, you will have significant abuse and wont see it at all.

Boating is in some ways more akin to flying aircraft than operating a car. The spectrum of control of boats is different and variable, by comparison to automobiles where paper operational rules are much more easy to set expectations for and to enforce.
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