Subscribe to RSS FeedI had my feet on a cooler, and something advertised as "frost brewed" in my hand. It was a Saturday afternoon and the five of us were sitting on the dock, talking nonsense and critiquing the boats pulling down the channel to one of the three marinas to our south. It was a Hatteras that got us on our feet. He'd cracked off a plane, but with bow high and a wake you could've surfed, powered down the channel. We waved and hooted at him to slow up, but he wasn't having it.
It was Billy's boat that got the worst of it with impact damage to the bow where the wake had driven it into the dock. It was fixable, but it'd be a week-long repair and a couple of thousand bucks. Billy wasn't too happy, but he settled down when I explained to him that the maritime law was on his side.
You see, that wake that rolls off the back of your boat and rushes away is generally your responsibility. In other words, when your wake causes damage, it's quite possible that you're going to be on the hook because a passing vessel typically owes a duty of reasonable care to appreciate the reasonable effect of its wake. So Billy took some pictures, wrote down the names of some characters who'd seen the event (aside from us), and filed it away as next week's project.
Later on, one of us got talking about how the choices you make in life have consequences. That's when Billy chimed up. He's right, I guess, that little maxim does get visibly manifested when a boat's wake chases its way to shore.
Underway and making way.
--- JKF
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