Power Idiots!

My annual vacation is usually just after New Year, when most of the power idiots get back to work.  Usually you can then find a parking near the beach, without doing a half marathon just to get to the water.

This time of the year is also the only time I keep my head low when passing fellow sailors.  See my parents own a ski boat and usually on holiday I play a bit around on the water and leave sailing on the banks of the lake.  As I speed across the lake, I am astonished to see how idiotic and uninformed the power boating community are. To them "Rules of the road" does not exist, especially after the first beer.

Now if you think "Rules of the road" is a foreign concept for them, wait till you see them trying their hand at mooring.  On the lake their is small "coves"  where they beach their boats for the night. Since it is protected water, none of them even think that the afternoon/evening 30knts + wind can kick up a bit of a swell and a cross wind that could move their moored boats around.

One such power idiot could not give a S@#$ about it and needless to say irritated the hell out of me.  In the evenings he retired to the warmth of his braai (bbq) while nurturing his 1 millionth beer for the day.  Only using a very SLACK bow line to keep his boat from drifting off, his rubber duck floated a bit higher in the swell and turned sideways in the cross wind.  This would've been okay , except his stern, with his prop protruding, was bobbing millimeters away from the smooth side of our boat.  Haven't he heard of a stern spring before???

Trying to be of service to the greater boating community, I suggested a few mooring ideas to MR P. Idiot.  But to no avail, every late afternoon I had to get wet and re-moor his rubber ducky.

Note to Power Boat Association - include mooring techniques in syllabus for skipper license.