Boat Wake When Passing

[Bass newb]

How callous is it that none of the other fisherman stopped to see if they sere alive or needed help?

[Habby]

what a question. In my experience and it involves the Potomac River where you get huge tourist boats like the Spirit of Washington, the James River where you have narrow areas with commercial barges to large lakes with Wake Boats where kids are surfing 6 feet from the stern without a rope, the answer is, it depends :)

The bigger they are, the slower I want to go in general while importantly maintaining plane. Ideally, I like to parallel the wake and sideslip it like what the Spirit of Washington puts out. It almost killed me and 2 wounded soldiers I was taking out one year as we were waving at the tourists as we were going by in the opposite direction and then I saw the wake...OMG moment and one that lead me to always have a hotfoot in the boat so you don't accidentally slap the throttle lever down.

I can tell you that going airborne is very hard on your LU (I have the old check for a new one to prove it), and your back, so I have decided the best solution is to take off as much speed as I can without giving up control. smaller wakes can be taken ideally at 90 degree angles, traffic permitting. Every situation demands in some senses its own solution as you balance wake, tidal/wind influenced waves, speed of boat you are overtaking, other traffic, etc....takes years to perfect.

So true the old Pride of Mt Vernon put off one hell of a wake back in the 80's and 90's...

[Dubee]

I think the original article was wrong. MANY have looked at that video carefully and in slow-mo. They simply didn't know how to drive that fast and handle the wake. When you go up and over bow-high, the water changes your direction, and then the bow comes down, you get a bow-hook instantly. Not sure why we have high school kids driving those kinds of boats at those speeds. I think many set a 60mph limit but jumping a wake that is still way too fast.

Not high school kids. That was a college tournament.

[Msykes]

OldTimer57 said it perfectly.
Slow down and pay ATTENTION

[tdh]

How callous is it that none of the other fisherman stopped to see if they sere alive or needed help?

There were teams that stopped to help. You just can't see them in the video.