Boat/US Magazine: Making Waves the Wrong Way

That rolling wall of water that travels great distances from the path of a powerboat can be more than an annoying inconvenience to other boaters. Wakes can literally kill. While most media attention is paid to boating mishaps due to speed or alcohol, often overlooked are the injuries and damages caused by large wakes. They don't often make headlines but incidents such as these are not unusual:

* A 26-foot sailboat anchored a safe distance from a busy channel is ripped off its anchor, lifted up on a wave and dropped hard upon a beach, burying its keel in the sand. The couple in the cabin barely avoid severe burns from the alcohol stove they were lighting at the time.

* A 25-foot powerboat is swamped and sinks in the Intracoastal Waterway with 11 people on board, in full view of waterfront restaurant-goers. Two of the party, German tourists, drown in their life jackets.

* Eight people in a 17-foot powerboat are swamped during an outing in a popular boating harbor and have to be rescued. One of the group, a 29-year-old man, doesn't make it.

* A guest riding on the bow of a boat is suddenly airborne as the boat plunges down and then up again. As the guest comes down, he slams onto the deck of the boat, breaking his back.

Each year there are scores of boating accidents involving swampings and capsizings and, as the cases above clearly show, many times a wake is so destructive a boater or fisherman is injured, or worse, drowns. As more boats share the waterways, frustrations with wake damage can go beyond impolite hand gestures to liability claims for damages or even criminal charges of vessel manslaughter.

One boat owner was so angry at being knocked about at his marina by the wake of a speeding boat in a "no wake" zone, he got in his car, drove to the drawbridge further down the river and parked in the middle of the span. He refused to move until the startled bridge tender agreed to call the marine police to cite the speeding boater.

A BOAT/U.S. member in Florida says the situation seems to be getting worse. "From my house which fronts the river (ICW), I watch daily many power vessels traveling at speeds which throw large bow waves and wakes. My neighbors and I often see water thrown up over six-foot sea walls. The vessels responsible are in the range of 25 feet and larger; speeds are typically 15 knots. 'No wake' notices seem to have little effect."

Consequently, enforcement is on the rise in some areas as marine police step up patrols, follow up on complaints and issue more citations. In a heavily traveled boating state like Florida, some 6,000 citations were issued in 1998 alone for speed-related violations. A skipper in Florida can be cited for careless operation and receive a $50 fine, or for reckless operation and face a stiff $500 fine and up to six months in jail. When a death is involved, criminal felony charges of vessel manslaughter can be brought, which carry a fine of up to $10,000 and 10 years in prison.

"Each captain is responsible for the wake of his own vessel, whether he's in a regulated speed zone or not," said Capt. Paul Ouellette, boating safety coordinator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the newly created state agency that now includes what used to be the Florida Marine Patrol. "They can also be held responsible for any property damage or environmental damage their wake causes."

Virtually all states have adopted laws similar to Florida's for careless and reckless operation. In addition, federal law requires all vessels to "reduce speed sufficiently to prevent damage when passing vessels or structures in or along all navigable waters of the U.S."

The worst waterways for wake damage are narrow channels, canals where vertical seawalls actually reverberate the waves back across the water, and restricted areas such as those near a drawbridge. Small creeks and bays also suffer shoreline erosion from careless wakes.

What's a Skipper To Do?

Slow down is the obvious advice especially in restricted, congested waterways, but how a boat slows down is just as important. The wake generated by a boat moves at an angle to the path of the boat. Many skippers don't realize that when overtaking a slower moving or anchored boat, slowing down when you are abeam of them actually pummels the other boat even more.

Another misconception is that displacement hulls cause greater wakes than planing hulls. Not always.

A crash course in yacht design shows that displacement hulls such as those of auxiliary sailboats, trawlers and large ships are vessels that push through the water rather than rise above it. The maximum speed potential of this type of boat depends upon its length at the waterline.

A planing hull, on the other hand, has a more angular hull shape that creates lift and allows the boat to rise up and plane at or near the surface of the water. Generally speaking, the greatest wake is created when a planing hull is operating between its displacement and planing speed, plowing through the water with its bow up and its stern down.

A powerboat coming down off a plane also creates a significant wake as the hull of the vessel settles into the water. An inadequate slowing of speed, especially by a boat that's not quite up on plane, actually creates a worse wake.

In a "no wake" zone, the boat should be slowed so that the hull is level in the water and the wake is negligible. One of the ironies of waterway speed zones is that allowing some planing hulls to continue up on plane at higher speeds may actually reduce their wakes.

Skippers need to look behind them often and see what their wake is doing, especially when increasing or decreasing speed. Use trim tabs to get up on plane quickly and keep the boat level. Shallow water increases the size of a boat's wake so an eye on the depth-sounder will also help.

Powerboats meeting sailboats or smaller, slower moving boats in a crossing situation should always try to allow as much sea-room as possible. In an overtaking situation, also give the slower vessel plenty of room. The more distance, the less impact your wake will have. You should signal your intentions with one short blast to overtake the other boat on its starboard side; two blasts to pass on its port side.

In drawspans, moving too fast through the draw and too close to a sailboat is Russian roulette. A wake that rolls a sailboat can cause the sailboat's mast to slam into the bridge structure. A large wake can also force a deep-keeled sailboat out of the channel and aground. In an incident in North Carolina, the wake of a passing motoryacht in a narrow channel sent a sailboat up onto a sandbar.

About to Rock and Roll?

Wakes are an inevitable part of boating and the best way to handle them is to slow down before the wake arrives and cross it at a slight angle. It's better not to come to a full stop because the impact of the wake with no headway could shove a boat's bow sideways. Taking a wake abeam is also to be avoided because of the risk of taking water over the gunwales, especially in small boats, and the abrupt rolling it can cause.

A recent review of 50 cases of "boat sinkings while underway" by BOAT/U.S. Marine Insurance found that a shocking 30% of them were caused by waves over the gunwales.

Injuries reported in insurance claims also highlight the danger of allowing friends and family on board to ride on the bow in choppy conditions. In addition to the broken back mentioned above, bow-riding into wakes has caused other broken backs, shoulder and neck injuries and torn knee ligaments.

Perhaps most important of all, when that big, ugly wake is coming your way, alert everyone on board with a simple, "Hold on! We're about to get rocked!" It would have spared one woman on a motoryacht who was thrown into her boat's steering wheel a new set of front teeth.

There's a famous saying, "Don't look back; you never know what might be gaining on you." True, perhaps, for landlubbers; out on the water it's a different story and the more a skipper looks back to check on wake effects, the better.