Member Forum

Boat/US Magazine, May, 2003

LettersToEditor@BoatUS.com

One Victim's View

The article, "High Court Re-Powers Debate" in your March issue, prompted me to write on behalf of the victims of propeller accidents. In 1957, at age 11, I was injured seriously in a boating accident. Falling off a small boat, I was hit in the head by the propeller, fortunately only a 15 hp. Like an axe to the head, my skull was fractured and nose broken. A talented neurosurgeon in Rochester, NY removed the piece of skull sitting on my brain. After three days, I was taken off the critical list. My activities were curtailed drastically. I had been an active, athletic child so in a few years the decision was made to put a metal plate in my head. I was then able to participate in normal activities.

Throughout this time my father, an aeronautical engineer and graduate of MIT, designed a "cage" to enclose outboard propellers in order to prevent accidents like mine. When he attempted to get a patent he was told there were hundreds of them already! It seems that the manufacturers could not be bothered with the additional expense to use them. If only one life a year had been saved, 46 lives would have been saved. I was extremely lucky. We should not leave saving a life to luck.

Katherine Francis Hall

Parksley, VA

False Security

In a Member Forum letter in March's BoatU.S. Magazine ("Tracking all Vessels"), Mr. Porter bemoans your stance against requiring position transponders aboard all craft over 65 feet. He uses transponders installed in private aircraft as an example of why we should put transponders in private watercraft for homeland security reasons.

I applaud BoatU.S.'s strong objections to the proposal to foist the expense of this useless so-called "security measure" on boaters! Transponders work well in aircraft as a collision avoidance tool, identifying what plane is where and at what altitude and speed -- not as a plane "location device." Radar is what gives the actual location of the plane as related to the tower. It would be easy enough to turn off a transponder; in fact, the 9/11 hijackers did just that on all four planes.

To state that transponders on vessels would somehow prevent a terrorist attack via sea, or even make it less likely, is to promote a patently false sense of security by doing something ... anything. Has Mr. Porter forgotten the USS Cole? It only took a small inflatable dinghy to damn near sink one of our destroyers (and that was with patrol boats in the harbor). Would we then require all vessels, regardless of size, to carry transponders? Can you imagine the confusion in the U.S. Coast Guard station as they attempt to track everything from canoes to cargo ships on a radar screen and guess each vessel's intent?

Sharp eyes on the part of all boaters, and use of their VHF radios to alert the Coast Guard to anything suspicious would do far more than any transponder requirement.

Capt. Ken Coughtin

Algonac, Ml

Windy City Blows Boaters Away

Your item in the January issue regarding Chicago was right on target. While I was born and raised in Chicago, and generally love the city and people, I find Chicago to be the most boater-unfriendly port and city I know of.

Part of the problem is "Mayor for Life" Richard M. Daley, who is not a fan of boats or boaters, only looking to the pocketbooks of us "fat cat" boaters whenever a city department comes up short on their budget.

With this new mooring tax being the final straw, we are moving our boat to South Haven, Ml, this summer. In years of visiting the many harbor towns along the east shore of Lake Michigan, we have found Michigan to be tremendously boater-friendly, with great transient facilities and fun, welcoming towns. Perhaps, if Chicago someday awakens to the "neglected treasure" that is its lakefront marinas and boating community, we will bring our boat back again.

Kevin Fitzgerald

Chicago, IL

Let Intlatables Fly

I commend the efforts of the airlines, the TSA, and other federal agencies to protect the flying public from harm due to hostile actions. However, some of the measures taken are the result of lack of understanding or overzealousness on the part of the regulators.

An example of this is the ban on [CO.sup.2]activated life jackets and the [CO.sup.2] cylinders. An examination of the TSA list reveals many other items with far greater potential for harm than our [CO.sup.2] cylinders, including items that could much more easily be altered to contain hazardous substances. Some of these items may be carried aboard, as well as in checked baggage.

I would much prefer to see an active education and lobbying effort from BoatU.S., as opposed to the passive tone offered by "Inflatable Jackets in No-Fly Zone" in the March 2003 "BoatU.S. Reports."

Frank Yaskin

Haddam, CT

Billions and Billions

Elaine Dickinson's article, "Starry, Starry Nights," in the March issue of BoatU.S. Magazine is a wonderful, awe-inspiring feature article. However, I would like to point out that "A light year is 6 trillion years" is not correct. A light year is the same as a calendar year time-wise, but a light year is actually defined as the distance that light travels in one calendar year; therefore, the author should have said that a light year is 6 trillion miles. The speed of light is usually rounded to 186,000 miles per second. Thus, 186,000 times 31,536,000 seconds in a 365-day year equals approximately 6 trillion miles, which still "boggles the mind."