Venting about inconsiderate boaters

Sometimes we all have to vent about inconsiderate boaters so lets hear your stories. My most recent was my trip to lake Sonoma 2 weeks ago. I get there and everything is great. Load up the boat with camping gear out of the way. Launch the boat and my dad and friends are all in the boat circling the ramp while I park the truck. Everything is going great. Set up camp, water sucks cant wakeboard but hey I am camping and out on the water so everything is still great. Some friends come and we have a great night. Next morning pick up some more friends and have some lunch, good times. Of course here comes the rant; A boat comes in and starts using the shoreline in our cove. 8 people in a 7 passenger boat. Kids with no lifevests. Whatever im still not too mad because they seem to be pretty respectfull. Then the boat leaves and comes back with another boat load of people. They start using a abandoned campsite to bbq. Then the guy goes back to the dock 3 more times to pick up people. Now there are 30 people all over the place being disrespectfull. There kids are throwing rocks and about a foot away from my boat. I ask them very nicely not to throw rocks by my boat and there dad says "stop throwing rock you little Fa*it. and then once i leave he lets the kid keep throwing rocks. Then there are 4 kids on a two person tube floating away with no life jackets into the middle of the lake. Then the tube flips over and they have a hard time getting back onto it. This right here is how accidents happen and kids die. One of the kids is calling his mom a As*hole and she calls him a ba*tard. This goes on for a hour untill I just cant take it anymore I cant even leave my boat because the kids are throwing rocks by it and there parents don't care. So i go all the way to the dock, walk to the ranger station which you all know is one long walk if you have ever been there and tell the ranger. They finally come and find out the people payed for a campsite so that they could day use it but they are only allowed 8 people. The ranger along with the sherriff doesn't site him, and assures me that he will be gone by sundown. Me and the other campers tell the ranger that now we can't relax until after sunset. Basically they didn't do anything. Then my friend goes to get something out of my boat and one of the dad's of course all these parents are irresponsible and in there early 20's. The dad tells his kid to tell my friend " we didn't touch your boat foooo" after that we all went down to the water inspected the boat and then decided we would take a sunset drive to the marina and explore the lake and listen to music since we figure they wouldn't do anything to my boat until there last trip out. It took them over 2 hours to move all those people out but we did have a nice 15 mph cruise around the lake and just enjoyed the scenery. The thing was that I was having a great time until someone came and ruined it not just for me but for all the campers at that camp ground.

I witnessed some idiocy a few weeks back.

There was a boarder about 100 yards in front of me. There was a boat behind me. The boarder falls on a slight turn, and the channel is pretty tight there, so I stop, and the fellow behind me stops. We are lined up on the same side of the channel as the fallen rider, about 200' back. The driver of the tow boat turns around, and heads back towards the rider.
As the tow boat heads towards the rider, a boat approaches from the opposite direction with another boat right on its butt. The second boat proceeds to pass the first boat while cutting in between the towboat and fallen rider- 2 boats side by side running between 20-30 mph in a channel no more than 60' wide cutting between a towboat on one side and a fallen rider on the other. They missed the boat and rider by less than 15' feet on either side, and they were an alert third from chewing up the line and handle.

that is super weak man. I know that I believe channel 16 is coast guard channel but what channel does the regular patrol boats like on the lake use?

I guess I can share my story.

Last week we were out at Park Moabi sitting on our beach when I see an orange moomba, pretty full boat, with two guys standing on the gun wall holding on to the tower, which if I am not mistaken is completely illegal. Later in the day we decide to head up river and once again I see the same orange moomba pulling a rider, the rider goes down, with quite a bit of traffic around, and the driver circles around to pick him up, the rider misses the line, not his fault, then the driver guns it up river leaving his downed rider in the middle with traffic all around, of course everyone on the boat was cracking up, they all thought it was funny. Luckily we were close enough we put our flag up, and the rider lived to see another day. Lastly... a new rider goes out, and is ready to go, but there are 3 jet skis in front of the boat, cruising along, the driver decides to gun it, and pass one of the jet skis but a few feet (or at least thats what it looked like from my angle). That boat driver is your perfect example of someone who shouldn't be aloud to drive a boat, or why they should make boating safety classes mandatory.

weekends at the lake are never my thing but i went with some friends of a friend today just to get out and meet some people to ride with. We are heading back to the boat ramp and its pretty much chaos. Im not worried cuz i wasnt driving and it wasnt my boat but the owner/driver was getting a little tense and yelling at some people who werent paying attention. as we are maybe ten feet away from the trailer a guy on a sea doo cuts between us and the trailer. Boat owner yells at the guy but was pretty calm compared to what most people would do. He says something to the effect " what are you thinking? There's all this room to the side. Go around." guy on sea doo goes "i know" with a smirk on his face. Ignorance is one thing but dont be a effing douche bag.

(Message edited by proho on July 07, 2007)

Super effin weak.

yea. whats up with people surfing? do people surfing now have the right away? i was at sonoma on saturday and three different boats just went were ever they wanted, to the point that i had to stop with my rider two times so that i wouldn't run over the surfer. they were just making huge circles all over the lake. it just sucked. rick i know how you feel.

Yea I hate it when people turn in my line especially when they WAKESURF. I had a wakesurfer totally come into my line this weekend when you didn't need to and needless to say "BIG AIR" was a understatement, had to let got of the rope or else i woulda been way screwed. Or how about the guy in the 50' fountain doing power turns in my line. He got the middle finger from my whole crew.

Rick I know how u feel...I arrived to my secret spot last saturday, only to find out it wasnt a secret anymore...the cove I ride in is only big enough for a couple of boats to safely pull their riders...when I got out there it looked like a circus...a boat pulling 4 tubes at the same time, party barges right smack in the middle of the cove, speed boats going back and forth full blast through the middle of everybody and the usual jetski retards that love to pass by the boat 10 feet away...and to top it off one boat was trying to teach what looked to be about a 3 or 4 year old kid how to ski while all this madness was going on around them...I cannot even begin to count how many boat I saw almost collide...how someone didnt get killed or hurt out there I have no idea, needless to say I am done with going to the lake on weekends for awhile