Jetski justice

[Tinkerer]

Tides fall a lot on Westernport Bay and expose large mudbanks. <br /><br />Last week I'm going down a wide channel between the mudbanks as tide is going out and notice a jetski with driver sitting about 100 yards into a mudbank. Silly *&^% must have been going real hard, like they all do, to get that far in before he bogged in hardly any water. He could have seen the bank before he went onto it if he'd been looking.<br /><br />I confess to feeling a certain delight as I'm sick of these jetski clowns charging through fishing grounds and swimming areas at speed and generally just being a nuisance.<br /><br />Anyway, I motor up to the bank to make sure he's OK. He says he's got a mobile phone and says "I've rung for help but I don't know what they'll do.". I do. They'll leave him there for a few hours until the tide refloats him. You can't walk on the mud and you can't be rescued on it. He's going to be burnt and thirsty by the time he gets off, and he's way too far for me to throw him any sunblock or water.<br /><br />I head off knowing I've done my duty, but a bit ashamed of myself for enjoying his predicament. I remain ashamed every time I look at him over the next few hours while I'm fishing the area and generally enjoying myself while he's about where I'd like to see all jetskis.

 

[Laddies]

Re: Jetski justice

How sweet it is! I thougth it was a American thing with them, Stupidity

 

[Winger Ed.]

Re: Jetski justice

Originally posted by Tinkerer:<br /> he's about where I'd like to see all jetskis.

That, and seeing a water lice as its being dragged up on the beach after it broke down sort of makes ya feel warm all over don't it?

 

[sangerwaker]

Re: Jetski justice

Yuppers. I've towed a couple of them to the landing before, being the nice guy that I am. But not before I was done skiing!

 

[silenscurator]

Re: Jetski justice

I must say, i don't like to see anyone in distress, but the best thing on the water i ever saw was one of these guys deciding they wanted to jump the wake of the Island Queen up in Parry Sound Ontario. The Queen throws 6 ft wake when she is WOT and when he came down in one of the troughs and fell off, i just thought that he'd fallen, but when he came back up and the Jetski didn't, i went over to check on him and there the thing was..."floating" with the bottom facing up and a giant crack from stem to stern. Well, helped him into my boat and towed his old jetski/new lawn ornament back to the dock...oh well, we live and we learn...sometimes the hard way....

 

[Twidget]

Re: Jetski justice

It is sort of a guilty pleasure to see them in distress. <br /><br />I hate those things. My bro in law(heavy on the testosterone) and some friends of his were out jumping wakes, when somehow one of them was hit in the head by an airborne jetski. It caved part of his skull in, but he was fortunate enough to survive. <br /><br />I still havent figured out exactly how it happened,, according to their story, the guy that got hit was on the opposite side of a wake from the guy who was jumping. This was on Fort Phantom lake outside Abilene, TX. Its a small lake, an 18' boat is large there. How would you get a wake large enough to get high enough in the air to hit someone in the head that was aboard their jetski? *shrug*

 

[TwoBallScrewBall]

Re: Jetski justice

I too have one of thise friends. Believe me, you can get incredible air off of even small wakes if you know how to preload the jump.

 

[Stumpknocker]

Re: Jetski justice

I had a friend with one in Michigan. He insisted I come with him and ride his jetski. It was a very small lake. I put on his life jacket and sedately cruised around the lake at a safe and normal attitude then came back to the landing. He cried out with great testosterone induced wailing..."Ya never even opened it up!!!" Then he proceeded to show me how it was done. He found a poor ole guy in a rowboat in the center of the lake and proceeded to circle him at high speeds attempting to capsize the guy. The guy was livid and throwing bottles and tackle at him for all he was worth. I, standing on the shore in disbelief, wanted to crawl under a rock and die of embarrassment even knowing this guy. The law showed up an hour later and plastered my friend with enough marine citations to last him a while.... all equipment type unfortunately. I grinned inside from ear to ear as he signed all those tickets.

 

[Triton II]

Re: Jetski justice

It's a real pity that Jet Skis seem to attract the hoon element. We see plenty of them behaving properly, but still get the jerk who insists on showing off to his plastic chested girlfriend right in front of the boat ramp. There's a kind of silent pact here that boaters simply ignore these clowns, but sometimes you've got to wonder. Mind you, the clown element is now getting into wakeboard and ski boats as our state government has made Jet Skiing prohibitively expensive or restricted in their use (the licence is almost three times as much as a powerboat licence and they're banned from Sydney Harbour). Education seems to be the answer, however testosterone will always win over education. Dunno what to do... just ignore them until they break down and then tow and educate? In any event, I'll always tow anyone who's in trouble, would like to think we'd all do that.

 

[silenscurator]

Re: Jetski justice

Funny thing is, up until my grandad died, sure enough, every so often, the people down the way had trouble with their jetskis after continually flying past the end of our dock. apparently, someone...not sure who... would put sand in the gas tank...kept them quiet for a week or so...

 

[Tinkerer]

Re: Jetski justice

Originally posted by Triton II:<br /> It's a real pity that Jet Skis seem to attract the hoon element. We see plenty of them behaving properly, but still get the jerk who insists on showing off to his plastic chested girlfriend right in front of the boat ramp. There's a kind of silent pact here that boaters simply ignore these clowns, but sometimes you've got to wonder.

The problem is that the hoons are real bad and they tar every jetski user with the same brush. We've had at least one fatality here with one of these idiots running over a kid who was swimming. <br /><br />They'd ride in among swimmers and there's been a couple cases I've heard of, and no doubt plenty I haven't, where they've been dragged off their stupid machines by swimmers and given a flogging. Also the reverse, where the jetski jerks have ganged up on swimmers or a boat. <br /><br />You don't hear much about it now but it was bad until a few years ago, and was getting a bit of press coverage. The police got a bit more active. <br /><br />Our new licence laws might have helped. We brought in licences for all powered water craft operators a couple of years ago with an extra endorsement for jetskis. The knuckle dragger element might have found it too challenging to sit a test that required them to be able to learn and remember confusing things like port and starboard, compass points, and cardinal marks etc, not to mention having to read and write during the test.

 

[Triton II]

Re: Jetski justice

Spot on Tink... they're mainly knuckle draggers here too. Unfortunately what's happening here is that house prices have gone ballistic in the last few years so even a knuck's house in western Sydney is worth 1/2 a million. They use the equity to borrow and go buy a Bayliner or a Lewis... then behave as badly as they did in the JS days. My kids can spot them a mile off, they're the ones who've parked their lowered WRX in the middle of a two lane ramp trying to launch a tonne and a half of Bayliner with the rear strap still in place and their trailer lights still contected!

 

[Tinkerer]

Re: Jetski justice

Originally posted by Triton II:<br /> My kids can spot them a mile off, they're the ones who've parked their lowered WRX in the middle of a two lane ramp trying to launch a tonne and a half of Bayliner with the rear strap still in place and their trailer lights still contected!

Followed by getting the esky from the car and loading the boat while it's on the ramp; losing their $300 sunglasses while they're undoing the transom straps and wasting fifteen minutes diving for them; stuffing around erecting their bimini; then launching and doing a couple of fast donuts to bang the other boats up against the dock before heading out the channel at high speed regardless of the speed limit.<br /><br />Return is the reverse of this process, except they come in fast and put up some decent waves to make it harder for the people loading on the ramp. Also dive for the sunglasses again while the car is on the ramp, because they're likely to be in the same spot four hours later with 50 boats launched and retrieved over them with the tide running. Also spend ages looking for the winch handle. Make a lot of noise. Have a blue with their sheila because she had the winch handle last. At home. Experiment with power loading with 20 trailers in the queue with fuming drivers, and boats circling because they can't tie up. <br /><br />They're self-centred apes who either don't know or don't care about the problems they're causing for other people. Just like the jetski hoons.<br /><br />I just hope I'm around one day to see one of these clowns powerload and park his $80,000 boat in the back seat of his flash new car.

 

[Triton II]

Re: Jetski justice

Pick me up off the floor, sounds just like the local ramp! <br />I've got to stop using this forum, it's overloading my humour brain cells!

 

[Twidget]

Re: Jetski justice

Replace the WRX with an Escalade and you have a few of the lakes around here. It must be an epidemic.

 

[rodbolt]

Re: Jetski justice

Twidget<br /> I loved it. was cheap entertainment when I was working at dutch branch marina on lake Benbrook. the sunday afternoon loading spectacle. the only better thing was if a thunderstorm was building .

 

[tfjrc2]

Re: Jetski justice

Ramps can be the fun(iest) places!!!<br />Many years ago, as a kid, it must have been an olympic year.<br />There was a tavern with a beer deck at a launch/retrieval ramp--well right next to.<br />We came up with a number rating system--all in good fun:<br />6-two people, no yelling, boat, trailer, and tow out of/into water under 5 minutes.<br />5-same thing, but under ten minutes.<br />4-more people, more yelling, but looked like they knew what they were trying to do. 10 minutes.<br />3-same as 4 but looking like they had luck with them that day.<br />2-lots of yelling, no ropes, over-all pretty bad stab at it, BUT the mission was eventually accomplished. 15+ minutes.<br />1-mission failure. Those could be pretty funny, but I only saw one. I was not in a position to help, but they launched everything! Boat, trailer and car!

 

[wonderphil]

Re: Jetski justice

Up here in northern Michigan we get a double-dose jetski's in the summer and snowmobiler's in the winter. Both types seem to have a death wish or have just taken an overdose of stupid-pills. The only difference is the sled-heads can attempt suicide both day and night. We even had a fatality last year in June on dry ground the temp in the 70's of a guy on a snowmobile and his girlfriend was critically injured.

 

[Twidget]

Re: Jetski justice

Rodbolt, <br />I avoid Benbrook anymore. People are a little too crazy there. I was using Cleburne for a bit, then bought a campsite at Granbury. Its a little quieter.

 

[nickpokorny]

Re: Jetski justice

down here in florida in the icw around where my house is the channel has a couple of relly shallow sandbars and if i ever feel depressed or somthing i sit on my dock and watch the jetskiers run right up on the bar. and i enjoy it.