Boat wake; inconsiderate operators

I don't think you can make that statement. What we're saying is that each set of events have unique circumstances that predict what the outcome will be.
That's why people are asking (and saying) what they are.
We've all been waked sometime or another , this is a fact. The waterways are busier and busier with larger crafts. This inherently creates the wake issues, they're not going away, we have to be aware and react accordingly.

This is starting to read like a thread from one of those snail bote forums. Some meat heads wake spilled our cheap red wine, broke the WinnDixie carafe and stained her custom woopie cushion.
Good grief...

We live to belch black smoke, stare down waves, take our bruises and look forward to the next lil wave aimed at us.
At the same time, most of us are professionals, delivering others our running our own, we strive for all on the waters to be happy and safe. But stuff does happen and not all lil fishing or day boats are visible.
This is Aqua Space; Ship Happens.

It would be the most prudent thought for small boats to be prepared for wakes, able to skull or motor the bow towards the wave action.
The more prepared the mariner is, the less issues he will have when rocked. We don't need rules and laws dropped on the many to serve the few that are not responsible for their own ship or safety.

Yes, I just ticked a few of you off. You probably need to grow up and get over this also.

Actually, no. Although that is a common misconception, the law is much more complicated than that, which you will discover if you take your case to a real lawyer. Circumstances matter, and in every case, you must prove the relevant facts, negate the defenses, and convince your [usually non-boating peers of the jury] that you should prevail. It is not a cut-and-dried affair.

Not sure how to reply to this but to just ask, was the other boat and operator sea worthy that these damages and injury were easily avoidable?

If there comes to be a plaintiff, this will be asked also.

This best sums up the attitude, as I can see it, of the responses to the OP.

OB as usual, has a great summery line there.

Ego or reality?
I really did not want to tick you off but sensed it would happen.

Don't forget the horn.
I use horn signals first whether one ; pass port. two pass starboard. Lots of times no one answers the vhf call . Then again many don't know their ''Whistle'' signals either.

You're asking us for an opinion on a behavior we didn't witness and don't know what kind of behavior. Don't know the size of wake. Don't know where you were vs the other boater. Don't know where this happened. Don't know if the wake was the reason for the injury or a chair of some type that broke or fell and was not designed for such conditions.

You want it to be simple. You're all right and the other guy is all wrong because you declared it that way. We were trying to understand it better but then you became defensive and decided not to help us in that regard.

I can't advise the other guy because I don't know who he is. I can advise you as I have to be better prepared in the future so you don't get injured again by similar wake. It will happen. Might be a 1 in 10 or 1 in 10,000 chance, but it will.

Yes they should have slowed down for you, but not knowing any better or not caring they didn't. Seems to be the modern boating trend. I would have slowed down for you, given the distances and circumstances you said. But if you are going to fish the ICW cannel edge or near it, you have to be ready for those who don't slow down and there are many...

I was a longtime competition BASS fisherman here in the Northeast.
I've fished the upper Chesapeake Bay and Tidal Delaware River where ship and Tug traffic was common, along with big yachts. Big wakes were common.
A Tug wake would swamp your boat if you didn't deal with it properly.

You have to be ready for them hope for the best and expect the worst. I never anchored next to or near a navigation cannel. I always ran the trolling motor on the bow, got to fishing and was ready at any moment to jump in the seat and fire up the main engine get to deeper water before the waves break and drive into them.
I was always alert/observant of on coming traffic if I was fishing the channels edge. It's just an is....Perhaps fish it differently next time?


I hope you get to feeling better.

Good lines and reasoning here also.
Another good BoyScout??

Liability as you suggest is not absolute; under the law it makes a BIG difference as to where you were and what you were doing. I'll give you an extreme example, if you were jumping my wake, good look with your argument. There is the legal concept known as comparative negligence - meaning his negligence is balanced against your negligence. You seem resistant to examining any portion of your own conduct. If I'm anchored on the side of an active channel with no anchor light on with my back to the traffic - ummm?

I believe you've made another faulty conclusion: that we condone bad conduct. We don't. And in your case you haven't fully described the incident so we are not condoning anything in your matter. Why do you "jump" to that conclusion? If you read our posts carefully, you will understand that we all gave you the same limiting caveat that we were speaking generally.

If it wasn't a folding chair, then was it a fixed/ helm chair on your boat that broke apart? I've been through some nasty, nasty inlets and Ill be darned if I ever had may chair break under me. This was just a wake right 2-3 rolls and its gone?

By the way, what were you fishing for?

"And quite honestly if you’re either rude or dumb enough to fish right in the middle of an inlet channel, I’m going to blow by you if it won’t put you in peril, because you have zero business fishing there to begin with. It would be like walking down the center of US-1 all day and complaining about the cars."

AMEN..
This quite frankly is the root of all evil. If I could have these guys arrested I would.

I am done with this thread! Saltysenior refuses to acknowledge his own possible culpability. Why come to the forum for advice and then argue with our responses. Geez. And I know I always seek my legal advice from Google....

And frankly he's reinforcing his own culpability by continuing to hide the nature of the "chair" that broke leading to his injury. Perhaps in another forum he's talking about suing the chair manufacturer. I wonder when winds kick up and cause a bit of a disturbance, who he thinks about suing. The whole litigation attitude gets tiring as well. If the boat had been as close as he alleges, surely he could have gotten the numbers off the side. Oh, wait, he wasn't paying attention to passing boats. He's busy fishing so 100% of the burden is on them.

Boat wake etiquette seems to depend very much on where you are at. In the Carolinas there is an expectation to mind your wake. Between ft lauderdale and Miami no one comes off plane regardless of boat size. I routinely get hammered in my 12 ft rib on the icw At most 1 out of 10 boats come off plane and you must be ready to take on the wake at all times. If you are fishing near the inlets at haulover or ft lauderdale 100 % of the time you will get waked. It’s just the way they boat in south Florida so you can either enjoy the clear warm water and deal with wakes or go somewhere else

SORRY, I said I was done, but some of these expectations expressed here just collide with my 70 years experience on the water - yes, I was a lucky kid, my father had a boat.

Minding your wake is a universal rule! But if you put yourself in a place were big boats run, you're gonna get waked. That's also a universal rule. But like climate change some want to deny it. How many are on this forum, raise your hands - just teasing. Did you ever go tuna fishing in late November up here in the NE to snag some of those migrating beauties? If you don't want to really, really get rocked, you DON"T go to the canyon in November. Like maybe you don't fish in an active channel on a Sunday afternoon around 4pm? Some of the complaints here seem similar to the complaining pedestrian entering a cross walk against the traffic signal (that negligent conduct has gotten so out of hand, many municipalities have installed red and green hand signals - and people still don't obey the rule.) I'll imperfectly analogize some of the arguments made about wakes to the crosswalk guy : "Well its a crosswalk aren't those cars driving in the roadway with the right of way suppose to stop because I, ME chose to step into it!" NO! I also love the tricksters who raise the mainsail, luffing like a nervous preacher while still going 6 knots against the wind right across my port bow daring me to continue. Uumm maybe he really is a powerboat in that circumstance and I should hold my course - nah, I just yield.

I really gotta get a social life....