Who was rude?

First of all, when I'm cruising a narrow lake w/out a rider and another boat with a rider is coming at me, I almost always stop my boat to let them pass to minimize my wake.

but...

I was out this weekend, taking my parents out for a cruise while they were in town and a boat w/rider came up behind me and passed (I didn't stop), then pulled right in front of me (putting the rider too close to my boat for comfort). I wasn't really bothered by them pulling in front of me but what did bug me was when the rider fell and I was passing him giving him the peace sign, he was frantically waving his arms with a frown on his face as if to say that I should stop my boat and wait for him to get back up and then follow (or he was saying I had been following too close which would have been the fault of his driver that pulled in front of me).
Anyway, I often do stop my boat when a good rider goes down in front of me to wait for him/her to get back up and enjoy the smooth water but I didn't in this case because of the lack of courtesy from the other driver.

Right or wrong? Either way I was bothered by the immature reaction from the rider when I was waving a peace sign... as if my stopping was his right.

lach

Wow! You really brought up a sore subject. The exact situation happened to me this weekend on Folsom. These guys pass us out of a no wake zone, the rider dumps, and then glares at me as I cruise by just barely on plane...
Sometimes it's best to bite the tongue but that exact mentality is what lands a person in the hospital and ruins it for the rest.
The lower that lake gets, the more I feel like I'm on I-80.

those seem like the know-it-alls type of person, but doesnt relize what they are doing is putting others in danger... I see that stuff alot and i just get away from them, either stop speeding up or stopping... or even go to other areas on the water...

We went to Rollins and it was like a freeway of tubers out there. I saw one guy in an old ski nautique towing two little kids in their tube, with NO spotter. We were surfing, and my rider was real close to the boat, but I took the time to tell the guy (who was easily within shouting distance to us) that he needed a spotter and what he was doing was illegal in the state of California. He simply said "thanks buddy... followed by some unintelligible snipe.".

I'm not really there to police the lake or enforce the law, but I don't want some bozo running over my downed rider while he is looking over his shoulder at his kids in the tube. This is especially true when it's crowded. I could care less if it was mid-week and there were no other boats in sight.