OK, so I've finally got myself a stupid human tricks story. I've been sitting on it for a couple of weeks waiting for my friend to get the pictures online, but she never did. So I'll just do without the illustrations...
A few weeks ago we hit the river to watch the space shuttle launch. This is a pretty common thing to do, and typically we're surrounded by a bunch of relatively experienced/non-ignorant boaters. There's a known line that you're not allowed to cross on launch days (power lines across the river) and it is fairly well patrolled by the coast guard. Anyway, we're all setting anchor just south of this line (first come, first served for the best vantage point), and some guy with what had to be a brand new Chaparral (24-26 ft) decided he needed a better view, so he pulled in front of about three of us. Just so happened he ended up north of the line. So the coast guard comes up and "asks" him to move.
He complied, and moved his boat directly in front of the boat due east of me. He throws out his anchor and sits back to watch the show (completely blocking the other boat's view). Well, we're in about 6 feet of water, and he let out 8 feet of scope on the anchor line (we all use sandy bottom anchors that need to dig in to hold). About 5 minutes later he realizes he's drifting in to the other boat. So he starts his engine and backs away, and moves around the other side, without ever lifting his anchor.
After the show I already had, I decided to keep an close eye on this guy. Good thing too, because about 15 minutes later, he's drifting pretty close to me. Close enough that I had to get one of my "deck hands" to run up front and get ready to push his boat away. The dude caught himself about a foot from my boat, and started his engine and moved again. Without raising his anchor, again.
So now he's come to the realization that he just can't play in close quarters with other boats. He decided to move a bit south into an open patch of water. Shut down and proceeded to continue drifting. This time he actually did drift in to a pontoon filled with tourists. As the crew of the pontoon tried to push him away, he started his engine again and tried to back away. This time his anchor managed to finally grab hold of something....the anchor line from the pontoon. That's when we took some pictures. It was a funny sight to see.
Why he never figured out his anchor wasn't holding him in place, I'll never know. Feeding out some scope would have fixed him right up, but obviously he never bothered to learn anything about boating before he bought a 30k boat and dunked it in the river. Obviously, money is an acceptable substitute for knowledge.
A few weeks ago we hit the river to watch the space shuttle launch. This is a pretty common thing to do, and typically we're surrounded by a bunch of relatively experienced/non-ignorant boaters. There's a known line that you're not allowed to cross on launch days (power lines across the river) and it is fairly well patrolled by the coast guard. Anyway, we're all setting anchor just south of this line (first come, first served for the best vantage point), and some guy with what had to be a brand new Chaparral (24-26 ft) decided he needed a better view, so he pulled in front of about three of us. Just so happened he ended up north of the line. So the coast guard comes up and "asks" him to move.
He complied, and moved his boat directly in front of the boat due east of me. He throws out his anchor and sits back to watch the show (completely blocking the other boat's view). Well, we're in about 6 feet of water, and he let out 8 feet of scope on the anchor line (we all use sandy bottom anchors that need to dig in to hold). About 5 minutes later he realizes he's drifting in to the other boat. So he starts his engine and backs away, and moves around the other side, without ever lifting his anchor.
After the show I already had, I decided to keep an close eye on this guy. Good thing too, because about 15 minutes later, he's drifting pretty close to me. Close enough that I had to get one of my "deck hands" to run up front and get ready to push his boat away. The dude caught himself about a foot from my boat, and started his engine and moved again. Without raising his anchor, again.
So now he's come to the realization that he just can't play in close quarters with other boats. He decided to move a bit south into an open patch of water. Shut down and proceeded to continue drifting. This time he actually did drift in to a pontoon filled with tourists. As the crew of the pontoon tried to push him away, he started his engine again and tried to back away. This time his anchor managed to finally grab hold of something....the anchor line from the pontoon. That's when we took some pictures. It was a funny sight to see.
Why he never figured out his anchor wasn't holding him in place, I'll never know. Feeding out some scope would have fixed him right up, but obviously he never bothered to learn anything about boating before he bought a 30k boat and dunked it in the river. Obviously, money is an acceptable substitute for knowledge.
