Mid Size Power Boats

The Risks

Seaworthiness and Respect for the Sea

At the time I originally conceived the manuscript, I had no intention of including the following section.

However, the increasing numbers of serious boating casualties that are related to unseaworthy vessels prompted me to reconsider.

Seaworthiness is a concept that is difficult to correctly understand, though nearly everyone thinks he understands its meaning.

The term is actually a legal term, and if you know anything about the law, you’ll understand that it is unavoidably complicated. Here is the basic legal definition:

The fitness of a vessel for a particular voyage with reference the condition of its hull and machinery, the extent of its fuel and provisions, the quality of crew and officers and adaptability to the type of voyage proposed.

While this definition is clear and precise, less obvious is the huge array of judgmental factors it encompasses with words such as “quality,” “condition” and “adaptability.

Without knowledge and experience, none of these judgments can soundly be made.

Note here that this does not merely pertain to ships on the high seas, but equally to a canoe crossing a lake or a river boat.

If a man successfully crossed the Pacific in a bathtub, does that make the bathtub sea worthy? No, it makes the man very lucky: he didn’t run into any storms to ruin his day.

Another man tries to cross in a well-equipped cruising sailboat. He encounters a storm and the boat is destroyed but the man rescued.

That boat was not sea worthy either, for in the judgment of experts, it was not built strongly enough to encounter the conditions that should have been expected.

Seaworthiness is not a matter of luck; it’s a matter of being prepared for conditions that one would reasonably expect to encounter.

Storms, of course, are a common occurrence, and it is not always possible to escape from them by seeking shelter.

Risk From Without and Within

The ocean, lake or large bay is a dangerous place, despite its usual appearance of placidity.

The attitudes of many first-time boat buyers today is radically different than it was in the past, probably due to advertising.

Respectful attitudes have also changed due to cell phones, prowling towing services and televised dramatic helicopter rescues (most aren’t aware that the rescuers send out bills for their services billed at some $3,500/hr.)

Many people now have only have a vague notion that the water can be dangerous, and have almost no comprehension of how fast that placidity can turn into a boiling cauldron of violent water, mainly because the media has portrayed it otherwise.

Few would argue that we live in a risk-adverse society, though many try to eliminate all risk, while others simply pretend everything they do is safe.

Recent events reveal how untrue that is as the two tallest buildings in the world came tumbling down with their occupants safely at work behind their desks.

One of the things that has always attracted people to boating is the desire for adventure. Adventure is usually achieved by challenging the unknown and therefore entails the element of risk.

Boating entails considerable risks that most boaters willingly accept and even enjoy.

Yet there are always the risk averse types who fool themselves into believing otherwise.

I came to this understanding while dealing with boat owners who were stunned that their boats could sink, overnight, at the dock. Totally flabbergasted, it never occurred to them that their boat could sink.

So how is it they overlooked the painfully obvious? It then occurred to me that these folks really didn’t comprehend the fact that their boats remaining afloat was dependent upon them!

No, they thought that it would just go on floating forever all by itself. To them the boat was no different than their car.

The truth is that all boats are self-sinking without the efforts of owners to keep them afloat. Sooner or later, without help, they will go down.

The element of risk not only comes from without, but from within.

Ranking very high among the most common causes of boating accidents is the failure to maintain a boat in seaworthy condition, so let’s be sure we understand how the term seaworthy relates to condition.

A vessel is properly maintained when the owner takes all reasonable and prudent steps to ensure that no mechanical breakdown will occur by making periodic inspections of all such things that are known to cause problems, not just with the machinery, but as regard to the seaworthiness of the hulls, which includes its plumbing systems.

Thus maintenance is not just a matter of fixing things when they break or go bad, but of anticipating the breakdown and taking corrective measures before the fault occurs.

Unless this philosophy is adhered to, the vessel will become unseaworthy by virtue of the reality that all things degrade over time.

The dangers of operating a boat are often not obvious.

Unlike driving a car, a boat floats on a fluid, water, which can be shallow or deep, clear or murky, moving or not moving.

Dangers include, running aground, getting caught in storms, becoming lost, and becoming stranded due to engine failure or running out of fuel.

There is also the risk of sinking resulting from striking a submerged or floating object, as well as the failure of some internal plumbing component, as well as the risk of failure to maintain numerous other aspects.

Wrapping a large, floating rope around a propeller can rip a shaft out of a boat, leaving a big hole. Almost no boats are equipped to deal with such emergencies. No, they hope that helicopter gets there in time.

With a car, RV or whatnot, you can park it in a driveway or garage and more or less forget about it for an extended period of time.

Not so with a boat, for a boat left unattended for long periods of time while afloat may sink, or at the least will deteriorate at a rate that is alarming, for boats require a substantial amount of care.

Owning a boat is not unlike owning a horse, for you just can’t turn your back on it for very long.

The newcomer to boating should be aware that despite all our high technology and the fairly good safety record of boat builders, to go boating safely one still needs certain knowledge and skills.

The need to learn something about seamanship has not disappeared.

Seamanship is not just a term that applies to ships on the high seas; it also refers to the skill needed to operate vessels safely on rivers, lakes and bays where storms, wind and waves may not be the only danger.