Great Story

[My Man's Sportin' Wood]

Independance Day, the family and I were in our boat, just outside of the buoys at Katherine (Lake Mohave)waiting for our friend to get gas.
The kids were in the water, cooling off and a guy on a Sea Doo was cruising nearby. He had two kids on the "boat" and two on a tube. One fell off and since they didn't have a flag, the kid on the back of the "boat" lifted her arm up, in an effort to signal that someone was in the water. As they came ten feet from our bow, I hollared (in a concerned tone) "You need to go get a flag, that's dangerous and illegal." The driver, about mid-thirties, ignored me and I said, "Do whatever you want, I'm just letting you know that what you're doing is dangerous." His reply was to tell the little girl on the back to raise her arm higher.
We just shook our heads and figured we had done all we could to avoid a child getting hurt.
It made my weekend when, not thirty seconds later, the ranger saw the dumb@ss and pulled his butt over. The ranger was with him for a good twenty to thrirty minutes, so I hope he got a hefty fine for putting those kids in danger in the busiest spot on the lake.

[NashvilleBound]

Thats a good story! I wasn't sure were it was going to lead...I thought someone was going to get hurt in the end. I hope he got a big fine too. NB

[JetBoatRich]

Amazing he would put the kids in danger and when you try to help his reaction.
:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[MagicMtnDan]

Mrs. Sportin' Wood:
Independance Day, the family and I were in our boat, just outside of the buoys at Katherine (Lake Mohave)waiting for our friend to get gas.
The kids were in the water, cooling off and a guy on a Sea Doo was cruising nearby. He had two kids on the "boat" and two on a tube. One fell off and since they didn't have a flag, the kid on the back of the "boat" lifted her arm up, in an effort to signal that someone was in the water. As they came ten feet from our bow, I hollared (in a concerned tone) "You need to go get a flag, that's dangerous and illegal." The driver, about mid-thirties, ignored me and I said, "Do whatever you want, I'm just letting you know that what you're doing is dangerous." His reply was to tell the little girl on the back to raise her arm higher.
We just shook our heads and figured we had done all we could to avoid a child getting hurt.
It made my weekend when, not thirty seconds later, the ranger saw the dumb@ss and pulled his butt over. The ranger was with him for a good twenty to thrirty minutes, so I hope he got a hefty fine for putting those kids in danger in the busiest spot on the lake. PWCs are like guns - those things don't kill people, it's the people using them,
In any case, their not having a flag was sheer stupidity but (and I don't know the laws there) it sounds like there's another, more important safety issue.
You said he had two kids on the PWC with him and two more in the tube. As I understand it (at least in CA), PWC operators need to be driving a three-person boat (3 person PWC, minimum) to pull a water-skier, wakeboarder or tuber. And they must have only one other person (observer/flag person) so that there's room on the boat for the person being pulled.
This guy had his PWC filled and was pulling TWO people! There's NOWHERE for him to put either of the two kids in the tube! He's the type of guy that after one or more of his kids got hurt or killed would blame it on someone else or the PWC/ski manufacturer.
He should have his PWC confiscated, his kids put in protective custody and be neutered so he can't produce any more sperm. Whatanasshole!
[ July 14, 2003, 08:08 AM: Message edited by: MagicMtnDan ]

[My Man's Sportin' Wood]

Oh, yeah! I forgot to mention... in our area, the flag person must be at least 14. This little girl using her arm as a flag couldn't have been over 11 or 12. We saw him later with just he and a woman on the PWC.

[mtndewdrops]

I agree with MagicMtnDan on this one...
How much does a flag cost? $20 at the Marina...what an idiot. Not to mention running with too many people. :mad: The kids are always the innocent victums. frown

[jlnorthrup122]

Cool! I realy hate to see idiots that take the gift of children for granted like that! I hope he learns his lesson but unfortunatly people like that wont learn until its to late or they just instill it in the next of there generation!

[HighRoller]

I personally think that allowing skiers/tubers/wakeboarders to be towed by a PWC is highly dangerous to begin with.At any given time the driver and/or passenger of the Sea-Doo can fall off leaving the person being towed in the water with nobody to warn other boaters.Most disturbing is the possibility of a serious injury occurring to one of the riders or skier.HOW are you going to administer medical aid and/or transport a seriously injured person when all you have is a waterborne motorbike.Are you going to drag somebody with an inured back or neck?I hope not. As far as the flag thing goes,I see people all the time with no flag because they don't know you're supposed to have one.They,of course,have no idea that whenever either your rope or skier(or both of course)are in the water you raise the flag.How many times have you seen the homies on their wakeboard boat pull the guy back onboard and drop the flag so they can give the guy"mad props"for 5 minutes while the rope floats in the water?

[NashvilleBound]

Were out in TN right now on a great lake...we were out with the kids wakeboarding and we put up our flag as my son got ready. Somebody actually asked me if we needed help. Go figure. I know were in hillbilly land but come on these people had a nice ski rig. Somewhere along the line he had to have been taught the rules by his parents? Boat salesman? It cant be that bad can it?????

[gigamurph]

NashvilleBound:
Were out in TN right now on a great lake...we were out with the kids wakeboarding and we put up our flag as my son got ready. Somebody actually asked me if we needed help. Go figure. I know were in hillbilly land but come on these people had a nice ski rig. Somewhere along the line he had to have been taught the rules by his parents? Boat salesman? It cant be that bad can it????? Yes it can NB! Same thing happened to us on Tenkiller in Oklahoma several years ago. We raised our "skier down" flag on numerous occasions and had no fewer than 4 boats stop and ask us if we needed help; and at least one of the guys got annoyed! Or could it have been the fact that we were from California?
:D