Greetings all,
I was anchored and fishing with some friends by the breakwater offshore near downtown Chicago (if you are familiar with the area: in the northeast corner of the playpen anchored a little bit further from the wall than the distance of a good long cast) yesterday 7/3. During the course of the late morning/early afternoon a commercially operated speedboat called the Seadog (by its colors I'm assuming it was the "Extreme" version) would appear every so often doing its spins in the breakwater area but generally wasn't bothersome to us except for the large wake that would eventually reach us (which was fine given the boat's respectable distance between us). But eventually, it seemed that the operator started getting progressively bolder and closer to us such that we began to have to return to our seats and grab hold of a handle whenever he passed. Finally, on one of its trips/tours/whatever, the Seadog actually sped through the narrow area between us and the breakwater at a high speed! At this point, having left a pucker mark in my seat from the wake sent up by that, and wary of perceived aggression, I decided to pull up anchor and head back to the harbor. I don't know the limits of my boat against such artificial conditions, nor did I have the desire to find out.
I followed the breakwater south until it was about time that I head SW across the open water area inside the breakwater towards the harbor. Suddenly the Seadog came up on my starboard side and cut south in front of me. There wasn't much time to react but I managed to turn enough to take the wave at about 45 degrees. Two larges waves crashed over my bow and gave quite a fright to my passengers (and my bilge a workout). A minute later, everyone pointed out that he was coming back, and sure enough, the Seadog came from my port side and raced across my bow again. This time I had more warning and slowed down and moved my passenger in the bow to the aft. I was too busy piloting the boat to really think about it at the time, but according to everyone else on board they were convinced that the Seadog was having fun with us at our expense (to quote my friend "he's chasing us!").
I fail to understand why the much larger vessel chose to get so close to me and I can't help but think that given the wide area of water and lack of other boat traffic in the vicinity that it was intentional harassment. Now, my runabout at 19' isn't a small fishing boat, but it definitely isn't one of the posh 30' yachts you typically see out in that area on a holiday weekend making me think I was an easy mark.
Any thoughts? Do I have a legitimate grievance such that I should file a complaint with the Chicago PD? Or was this guy just being a jerk and my only recourse is to lodge a complaint with the BBB. And was there anything that I might have been doing wrong?
Thanks
I was anchored and fishing with some friends by the breakwater offshore near downtown Chicago (if you are familiar with the area: in the northeast corner of the playpen anchored a little bit further from the wall than the distance of a good long cast) yesterday 7/3. During the course of the late morning/early afternoon a commercially operated speedboat called the Seadog (by its colors I'm assuming it was the "Extreme" version) would appear every so often doing its spins in the breakwater area but generally wasn't bothersome to us except for the large wake that would eventually reach us (which was fine given the boat's respectable distance between us). But eventually, it seemed that the operator started getting progressively bolder and closer to us such that we began to have to return to our seats and grab hold of a handle whenever he passed. Finally, on one of its trips/tours/whatever, the Seadog actually sped through the narrow area between us and the breakwater at a high speed! At this point, having left a pucker mark in my seat from the wake sent up by that, and wary of perceived aggression, I decided to pull up anchor and head back to the harbor. I don't know the limits of my boat against such artificial conditions, nor did I have the desire to find out.
I followed the breakwater south until it was about time that I head SW across the open water area inside the breakwater towards the harbor. Suddenly the Seadog came up on my starboard side and cut south in front of me. There wasn't much time to react but I managed to turn enough to take the wave at about 45 degrees. Two larges waves crashed over my bow and gave quite a fright to my passengers (and my bilge a workout). A minute later, everyone pointed out that he was coming back, and sure enough, the Seadog came from my port side and raced across my bow again. This time I had more warning and slowed down and moved my passenger in the bow to the aft. I was too busy piloting the boat to really think about it at the time, but according to everyone else on board they were convinced that the Seadog was having fun with us at our expense (to quote my friend "he's chasing us!").
I fail to understand why the much larger vessel chose to get so close to me and I can't help but think that given the wide area of water and lack of other boat traffic in the vicinity that it was intentional harassment. Now, my runabout at 19' isn't a small fishing boat, but it definitely isn't one of the posh 30' yachts you typically see out in that area on a holiday weekend making me think I was an easy mark.
Any thoughts? Do I have a legitimate grievance such that I should file a complaint with the Chicago PD? Or was this guy just being a jerk and my only recourse is to lodge a complaint with the BBB. And was there anything that I might have been doing wrong?
Thanks
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. No, it's not a rental. According to their website it's 65', seats 125, with 1400 hp. Not small! I'm also having second thoughts about going out on a holiday weekend now.
