This happened yesterday and I’m still pissed about it, and wanted to throw out a quick reminder to everyone.

It’s a fairly busy afternoon on the lake and my wife’s friend is learning to surf, she rides for a while then falls. I was eyeing a pontoon boat in the mirror the whole time she was riding, it wasn’t too close at the time but you never know. As I cut the throttle and turn around I notice it still hasn’t changed course or speed and its obviously getting closer. I figure he will see us any second and turn, but I wasn’t counting on it so I hurry back to my rider and place our boat between the pontoon and her. He still hasn’t changed course or speed, and is literally coming directly at us.

We all start yelling and waving our hands, I cannot see the captain at all because there is someone sitting in front of him. Nobody on the boat is looking forward. At this point a collision seems imminent, I can’t move the boat because he would likely kill my rider. I start laying on the boat horn, which isn’t very loud in my opinion, but I guess it carries over the water. Finally someone on the boat sees us, and gets the captains attention. I see his head pop up and he veers hard left less than 2 boat lengths before slamming us.

I’m infuriated now, as is the rest of my crew. I yell at the captain something about keeping your eyes on the f’n water, and my crew is telling them how they feel about it too as they pass less than 5’ off our bow. They then have the audacity to act like nothing happened saying something to me like “relax and smoke another cigarette”. I swear if I could have gotten on that boat I would’ve started drowning people, can’t remember the last time I completely lost my temper like that.

Anyway, I’m thinking about getting a giant compressed air horn to keep within arms reach of the helm.

Never assume the a**hole behind the wheel is paying attention, and always protect your riders!!!