bad driver poll......

i just cant stop laughing at this poll. i gotta say im lucky and ride with some real good peeps. all experienced delta riders and know what there doing. its nice to have a good crew. for those that have some stories though, i would love to hear them. i really want to hear the the 3% who have come to blows over bad driving. lol.

Come on Bryan, you've riden with some crappy drivers before at some point. I ride with the same group of people more often than not too, but occasionally we hook up with someone knew & they prove just how knew they really are.

For instance......

We hooked up with two guys in Havasu one year. Both riding AirChairs like we were, about the same ability, close to the same age, and come to find out they lived in Vancouver BC & we were in Seattle.... like 2 hrs apart. So they came down to our place a couple times & rode with us on Sammamish, then it came time for us to go up to BC & ride their waters. We ended up riding on the Pitt River, which is a working river, with barges, ships, submarines, ferries, etc. At one point my brother & I are watching one of the local guys ride, his buddy is driving. The line he's holding is parallel to a paddlewheeler ferry full of people. As the rider is going thru his tricks, people are standing at the side of the boat watching. The boat driver decides to close the gap a bit. Of course we're going much faster than they are, so as we close the gap, and pull ahead of them, it becomes obvious that we're going to cut the ferry off. My brother & I both start saying something to the driver at the same time...... "uh, hey, watch that ferry...... your gonna cut him off....... WATCH THAT FERRRY!!!" And about that time the rider goes down....... almost right in front of the ferry & maybe a few hundred feet ahead of him. The driver spins the boat around & tries to pick up the rider hot, something we've done in the past, but he blows it. And now the ferry is bearing down on us in a HURRY! Luckily the captain is on the ball & veers off to one side while he leans on his horn.

We never rode with that guy again.

Wow. Can't top Bill's story but I had a small incident.

I had to be on the cell phone doing some work while we were out riding. We were riding in a small area known as the "mud hole" You can throw about 4 tricks or so then you have to turn around in a pretty tight area. Well, while I'm talking we go in to one of the turns and the rider decides he's done riding and let's go of the rope in that turn. The driver knows how to drive pretty well, but he sees the rider go down halfway through the turn so he pulls back to idle while heading for his HUGE wake he just created. Did I mention I was on the phone? I figure he is going to give it some throttle to get the nose over his wake. He doesn't. BOOM! Huge roller over the bow. Did I mention I was on my cell phone?

End result, almost a foot of water in the bottom of the boat. First time I've had to open the hatch to the drain plug just to drain the water out. Did I mention I was on the phone? My phone was the only one that survived. Took out 3 other phones, one being brand new.

As we all know, often if you want to ride you are going to have to let someone else drive your boat and they may not have a lot of experience.

This year I am going to put a placard on the dash with instructions to "remind" them what to do. For wakesurfing I guess I will need two different ones depending on which side of the boat we are surfing on.

I hate that packrat is 110% correct. The newbies get a great tow whether they know it or not. Then the boat owner gets the worst tow of his life...my girlfriends dad said "oh Ive driven plenty of boats no prob" I didnt trust him but what can you do when her family is begging to see you ride. Shortly after that I am being towed about 10 feet from the shore...when I threw the rope down all I could do was pray that he turned left and not right into the shore. Luckily he did. It was hard to hide my frustration. People just dont realize how much is going on when towing someone.

It's our mission in life to school these people for safety, and so we can enjoy ourselves too. Sometimes a burden.

I have my kids in the boat many times, two boys are about old enough to start driving. So I've started pointing out to them what I am doing while driving - safety, technique etc. If I do it loud enough, the adults hear it too! They may not think you are talking to them also, which is just fine.

A couple summers ago I was wanting to get out one Saturday really bad. i called everyone and nobody could go. This girl named Jen just happened to stop by to visit and I asked if she wanted to go to the lake with me. She said yes and that she grew up driving boats and pulling skiers. So me her and her daughter went to the lake. I let her drive around to kind of get the hang of it again and made her do some things like drvie around a bouey pretending it was me yata yata. She looked like she knew what she was doing so I got my gear on and jumped in the water. Everything was going fine until i looked a head and noticed she was driving straight inbetween two other ski boats about 30 feet apart. Now she could have gone to the left or the right and missed the by a mile but for some reason she was heading right between them. I couldnt believe what i was seeing. As she belted through the small 30 foot gap and I rode by the other 2 boats. Middle fingers and beer cans and I am sure 40 F bombs came whirlling at us. I just wanted to get out of there so fast. When i climbed into the boat and asked her what the hell she was doing, she replied, my daughter thought she new someone in one of those other boats.

I know several Jr Pro parents who get yelled at about their double-up's on a regular basis.

It is always the drivers fault when a rider does not ride well.

Would anyone care to provide some tips to be a better driver? I bought my first boat this summer and most of the time had a experienced boat driver with me so I could rely on him for guidance/advice and drive him nuts with stupid questions. But I could still use all the advice I can get.

What do you do when you are on a body of water you have never been on before? How do you avoid trashing your prop?

How do you teach your spouse/daughter to drive the boat?

What are the keys to giving someone a good pull?

While I love being on the water the whole time I am out there I am kind of stressing out about not wanting to get anyone hurt or damage my boat. When does this go away?

(Message edited by mikebu on December 22, 2008)

By mikebu (mikebu)
What do you do when you are on a body of water you have never been on before? How do you avoid trashing your prop?

Stay away from the shoreline. Watch your depth gauge. Better yet, set your alarm for your depth gauge.

How do you teach your spouse/daughter to drive the boat?

Get a friend to do it.... someone she likes who has some boat experience.

What are the keys to giving someone a good pull?
Drive straight, hold the right speed, don't yank him out at mach speed, pay attention to your rider & the boats around you.

On the driving straight, pick a landmark on the far shore & aim for it. Look at your propwash in your rearview mirror..... is it straight or wavey?

While I love being on the water the whole time I am out there I am kind of stressing out about not wanting to get anyone hurt or damage my boat. When does this go away?
Maybe a few weeks or a month. Time on the boat will cure it.

MikeBu,

Go take a boating safety class in your area. It will teach you the basics that will make you a safe driver, the rest is just wheel time.

In many states, this class will get you a discount on your insurance.

Bill K you got it right for wives and girl friends. Get a friend to do it.... someone she likes who has some boat experience.

Remember at one time we all were new. Make it a fun challenge and team effort and people will try and want to get better. I explain good boarders are everywhere, good drivers are hard to find and the first to get a invite.

If they want to talk boats and how fast they have gone, I explain the boat has a big engine but its slow because its designed for powerful, consistent straight pulls of fat guys like me. (work the concept)

If they suck I tell them light heartedly THAT SUCKED and I explain why and how. If something stupid and dangerous is done I explain with a couple of good natured jabs. If your riding is half decent, they will recognize your competence and listen.

I keep my expectations low, make it fun, help them get better and did I mention have fun. You can create a driver that wants to drive and becomes good at it but you also have to diffuse the ego or fear.

Just the wife, kids and I. 2nd time wife has ever been on a boat, takes the wheel of my new boat. She did great at driving mostly straight till I fall, then get close and I'll get the rope myself. But man, my arms almost got ripped off, then I think she hit every wave on the lake and a slight turn the whole time.

After she got boarding down, we moved on to surfing and letting the rollers pass before spinning the boat. She's pretty good these days. Next summer it's docking. --I don't ever think she'll get backing the trailer down.

When I first bought a boat it was a fish/ski boat and my wife had never driven a boat before. I wanted her to learn so I started taking her out.

She was very nervous around docks and such so I always drove to the dock. She also did not know how to back a trailer so I would go to the dock, back in, get back in the boat and trailer it.

One day she wanted to drop me off at the dock for the first time. When she started away from the dock she turned hard and gunned it. Put a basketball size hole in the side of the new boat from hitting the corner of the dock. She was in tears, I never got mad at her at all.

Today, she is awesome at every aspect of driving a boat and backing a trailer in. I just worked with her on it.

Now I have my 14 year old daughter driving, she pulled my in a small private lake that is incredibly small and she did awesome. I told her to focus on her driving and don't worry about me, thats why we have a spotter.

When people are teaching their wives, daughters, sons, and even husbands. Be patient and don't get p.o.'ed when they make mistakes and you can turn them into awesome drivers. It kills me when you hear some dude screaming at his wife about her driving. Why would the fam want to go to the lake in that case?

I rememember the first year I was driving by myself.. YES this is about me! I was drivng on the lake and thought I was super cool ( my own boat BLAH BLAH BLAH) I had a boat load of friends and we had been skiing, tubing, etc. Well I was cruising down the lake and noticed a friend of mine going real slow toward this channel, well being ( Stupid ) I decided to surprise him and make a hard turn right next to him, AGAIN being stupid, I almost swamped their boat, and almost hit their boat with my back end, no damage, just a lesson learned.... I have about 4 nightmares a year still about what might have happened... We all started somewhere,IM not even going to comment on others, way to many out there that I have seen!

mikebu
Here is a short article we put on our local site on the basics of driving. It is very basic and might be common knowledge to most, but always good to see how others are doing it and being safe.
http://www.pdxwakesnow.com/driving.htm

It is always interesting seeing other drivers and how they operate. I had the good fortune to learn from someone who drove for a ski team. It takes time for someone to learn the nuances of driving. Some people are used to driving an outboard or an I/O and although they may be experienced, they have not driven an inboard boat.

I get a laugh out of many on my lake who create problems for themselves. My boathouse is in "the cove" of the lake, but it is very large and you can get good straight run of about a mile or so. These drivers stay in one end and drive around in the perimeter of the cove and in just one end. They are then only one out there and they are making rollers for themselves all the time. They do not realize that two or even three boats can run a dog bone pattern and run a straight line, just altering coarse to miss each other.

My wife learned to drive this past summer and I would rather have her drive than 98% of the "experienced" drivers I have come across. Of course, docking is another issue to be worked on this coming summer.

A friend of mine and I used to share dock space and would keep one trailer at the house for pulling either boat and cleaning. My boat was on the trailer and he wanted to use it so he put the plug in my boat and tied it up for what would be the night. Unfortunately he only put one plug in so in the morning my boat was underwater. He called the next day to tell me dude I sunk your boat.

It was pulled that afternoon, pickled, and running the next day. Amazingly the boat ran better than ever after that and I sold it 300 hours later.

After I bought my first boat, I was at my local lake doing wallies to pick up the downed rider. Some young punks in a wakeboat yelled 'idle back to the rider' to me. I did not know what he meant until I started reading here and figured it out. I try to help others, but most other boats do not take kindly to being told how to drive. I have given up, even when I try to do so as kindly as possible, it usually gets an ugly look.

The problem is our lake is small and 3 boats can ruin the whole lake in a hurry when they drive around in circles.

I just have to remember that I was the wally once.

My wife once took a family of friends who do not own a boat to the lake by herself. She was amazed at how little she picked up because I do a lot of it when we are out on the water. She got the rope tied up around the prop because they didn't pay attention to where the rope was at, and then the friend jumped in with his keys in his pocket. He tried to throw the keys into the boat from the water and came up short...keys to the bottom of the lake. She then watched with more interest, and has become very good at realizing what is going on. She still refuses to go without me, but I try to encourage it.

She's also a menace on a jetski if I remember right .

if someone is new at driving, don't just do it all for them, the only way they can learn is by doing it. good advise for a new driver is to get them out in uncrowded setting and just manuever the boat around slowly(same goes for teaching to tow/drive/trailer/backing...find an open parking lot and practice backing into an open parking space using the lines etc..) coming in to a dock newbys are almost always too fast and then hit reverse and gas too much keep telling them "easy does it" better to come in slowly and just "bump" the throttle in and out of gear, there is a lot of "english" a good driver is using to just let the boat turn and ease up to the dock, don't try to "force" it. always easy on the throttle around other boats/docks etc.

in open water make the driver back the boat up without jamming it or abruptly jolting everyone in the boat, have them shoot for smoothly manuevering, new drivers are always jerky on the throttle so only practice will smooth that out.

As a teacher don't be afraid to be a dick if necessary, it maybe your life you save, unsafe manuevers should be pointed out without being too nice. Some folks should just not be driving a boat and some folks just do not make good boaters...I've learned over the years that there are people you should never, never bring with you in your boat...the trick is learning who they are before you ever ask them into your boat.

nothing replaces experience.

@ 11 years old I started to let my kids drive the boat. I would drive out to the open water (with nobody else around), and find a no wake buoy or something like it. They would take the wheel and I would tell them to stop the boat next to the buoy without hitting it and get close enough that they can reach out and touch it. We would run the "drill" coming at it from different directions to practice from all angles and wind direction.

The first couple of times was pretty funny but no harm no foul. They figure it out pretty quickly but the boat doesn't get whacked practicing. My oldest is 14 and a better driver than many boat owners I've seen. He is very comfortable around the docks. My youngest (11) is still working the buoys, but getting better.

There is a long standing rule that 10,000 hours of experience will make you an expert. Keep that in mind as you teach other people how to drive, much of what we have gained over the years is to subconsiously scan, check and monitor our environment. That is a learned skill and takes time.

I have a ton of stories about myself, but those don't seem nearly as fun. Sitting at the Lake Sammamish Boat Launch, which is as entertaining as any boat launch I have been to, I was standing next to my boat wiping it down and my feet start vibrating HARD. I looked over and there was a brand new (papers still in the window) X-Star (50 yards away) whose prop was pounding into the cement ramp and the boat was jumping 12-24" out of the water.

After freaking out, I got closer to the situation and the poor guy had only backed his trailer into the water about 10 feet and he was trying to drive the boat onto the trailer. It was a sad, sad day at Lake Sammamish. Literally broke my heart.

Nice Phatboy. Your right about the Sammamish launch though, it's always an entertaining place to check out the idiots on the lake.

Heres a good one. And this guy is a boat dealer too.

Remember the Solo? That funky jetski lookin thing you could control from the end of the rope? It used a special handle with the throttle & turn controls integrated in it. So a guy could take it out for a spin, ski, board, foil, whatever, by himself, no driver or spotter needed (yea, legal, huh). Gerry Nunn & Mike Murphy endorsed it for a short time.

Well, the guy who developed the Solo.... he's making the rounds in the Seattle area, getting financial backing, recruiting endorsements from riders, setting up dealers, etc. He sets up an event at the Sammamish boat launch in Issaquah one day. Everyone shows up.... some with their own gear.... to take a spin behind it. Or at least laugh at the others trying to ride behind it. Of course Murphy gets up immediately on his SkySki & does air rolls, back rolls & front rolls behind it...... he can roll anything though. The funny part was when he would crash, he'd just hold on & the Solo would come to a stop. Murphy would right himself again & hit it... right back up again without the thing coming back to get him the handle.

So then Mr Boat Dealer gets behind it. He's a pretty big guy, maybe 230 lbs. and his weapon of choice is a fat kid ski. And of course the little 40 hp jet powered Solo has a bit of a tough time getting his big butt out of the water. He takes a couple stabs at it, and one time he veers off to one side.... but instead of just letting go of the handle & trying again, he holds on with one hand, with the throttle pushed full forward & to the right. So the little Solo is haulin ass forward & hard right, dragging Mr Boat Dealer with it. The thing motors right up towards the boat ramp, nails the dock, now it's aimed straight up the ramp, runs way up the concrete, flips over & is stuck wide open, full throttle...... because Mr Boat Dealer is laying on the ramp with his hand clenched around the throttle holding it wide open!!

It was a little scary at the time. But looking back it was funny as hell. And obviously the Solo never took off for some reason.

pppft LOL

I woulda paid to see that

I saw a guy get so frustrated trying to back his trailer straight but he just couldn't get the steering right. While sitting jack knifed he finally floored it while in reverse and the trailer and car was hopping as the trailer was pinned against the SUV.

I watched a 36 foot cruiser running 45 degrees toward shore as the driver looked the other way toward his three passengers. When he looked forward it was too late and the boat slid ashore.

I was in a safe position but what really made me think about this stupid act was that he could have hit me or someone in the water just as easily as the shore.

I guess the lesson is don't count on someone seeing you ahead of them or paying enough attention. Kind of like always treating a gun as loaded.

The Solo. You can still buy one:
http://www.amazon.com/Solo-Personal-Waterskiing-Wakeboarding-checkered/dp/B0006YZ3MA

http://waterskimag.com/article.jsp?ID=13451&typeID=121&categoryID=113

Maybe you can, Andy. I've got enough horror stories about the guy who invented the Solo from his ex-employees & ex-investors...... I think I'll steer clear.

And the $13k price tag will make sure I don't mess with it!!

You would think they would provide a better handle for 13 grand. I'm sure I would end up yanking that thing all over the pond.

A little demo


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MMESyHzoh0

Nahhh. I ain't buyin'. I bought my Sanger a few years back (albeit used) for just double that $13K.

Besides, there's no wake on that thing.

(Message edited by ottog1979 on December 30, 2008)

The guy who developed that handle was let go from Copes in Woodinville not too long ago. I guess there was a ton of issues with the handle...... not the least of which was when Murphy got a hold of the Solo. I guess he did so many inverts behind it that he twisted the wires up till they broke.

I was at the Copes & McPhetres Grand Opening in Renton several years ago & he was telling me all about the development of the Solo. Some guy happened to be walking by & over heard the conversation. He came up behind us & asked if we knew how to get a hold of the guy who owned that company. Come to find out he was an investor with some money on the line & wanted to know how his investment was doing. Made me think that if he was asking me, it might not be doing so well.