Safety should always be the Number 1 concern on the water. I am constantly amazed by the chicken games I see people play out on Clear Lake.

Everyone on the water does dumb stuff sometimes, but I think it's worthwhile to examine why. I don't know about powerboaters (boredom, maybe?), but for sailors I know we usually do it to show to ourselves how "awesome" we are.

Here in Clear Lake we have a channel that goes out under the Kemah Bridge connecting the lake to the bay. It's 100 feet wide or less, with most of the wind blocked due to the presence of very expensive houses. If I had a nickel for every time I've seen someone take it under sail, I'd buy new main blocks for my Hobie.

As sailors we have as much responsiblity to safe boating as anyone. Tacking across a channel that sees a boat every minute in both directions is not it. (I'm not accusing the parent poster of doing so, I'm just giving the example of what I have seen.)

If the sailboat is too big to easily trailer, it should mount an engine. If the sailboat is too small for an engine, it should be trailered past bottlenecks like the Kemah channel. That is the way I see things from the tramp of my Hobie.

Good wind to the sailors (and expensive gas to the powerboaters :+D ).

Brian

(In the interests of clarity: Not the Brian who started this discussion)