Does PWC stand for "Proceed without caution"?

BEING no stranger to (and an incorrigible, undiminished fan of) rapid speed on water, and as one very familiar with higher-than-average velocities, it is with heavy heart and no joy, dear reader, that The Skipper drafts this piece. It concerns personal watercraft and the reckless, limb-endangering and life-threatening manner in which many continue, despite stringent licensing requirements, to be ridden. Don’t get me wrong: there is no single product in the entire marine industry that has undergone such a complete makeover and ecologically-responsible metamorphosis as the PWC. The latest models have noise, emissions and efficiency characteristics that should theoretically make even the greenest, most zealous, myopic, hessian-clad, sandal-wearing beardy hug a dugong in joyous throes. But something’s wrong – we’re not getting the message across. You need only spend five minutes on a crowded waterway to know that these craft still engender huge measures of annoyance, fear and downright loathing in those around whose conventional boats they insist on milling and buzzing.

As someone who regularly heads for the Gold Coast Broadwater most weekends by way of the upper arm of the Coomera river, The Skipper can tell you that going up through the tight, twisting confines of the river, towards the Broadwater, in the early afternoon, when many people (including PWC riders) are coming back downriver towards Coomera, is akin to driving around the Monaco street circuit – in the middle of the GP, in the opposite direction, with the entire F1 throng bearing down. Anyone who has been on the Coomera river will know that, in some places, the distance between the green and red navigation markers is literally about as wide as a two-lane rural road.

Even with the 40-knot speed limit (in many cases regarded as advisory rather than mandatory), one must be fully alert, focused and switched on when driving against the flow of incoming traffic. And this is where PWCs become everybody’s worst nightmare. An example: whilst boats mostly keep hard to starboard (in The Skipper’s case, virtually a cigarette paper’s breadth from the red markers going outward), an alarming number of incoming PWC users will cut the myriad corners on the river and roar diagonally, at wide-open throttle, through the apex, which in many cases means that they end up heading for the red markers on the opposite side of the channel (vice versa going out, of course) – leaving those like yours truly with literally no room to move or to veer far enough starboard to safely exercise the “pass-to-port” rule.

In some cases, rather than alter course to comply with port-to-port”, the errant rider remains committed to exiting the apex on “the racing line” and elects to continue to The Skipper’s starboard side and out of the channel. At that stage, all that can be done is to drastically alter course with decisive alacrity (throwing port-to-port etiquette to the wind), which causes a moment of heart-stopping hyperventilation in Frau Skipper that mars the entire day. Said Frau Skipper – no stranger to matters nautical and who trusts yours truly behind the wheel the same way Buzz Aldrin relied on Michael Collins to safely drive Apollo 11 back to Earth - reckons it’s only a matter of time before there is mass carnage akin to the sinking of an overloaded Asian ferry. And she’s dead right.

There have been two serious PWC accidents in Queensland recently: a fatality on Moreton Bay and a spinal injury on the Broadwater. Other than the usual disparaging remarks on news bulletins about PWCs in general, the outcry was mild and the bleating half-hearted before it fizzled out. However, The Skipper thinks that the current deafening silence is ominously portentous and heavy with a huge, impending act of irrational, knee-jerk legislation. Methinks the do-gooders, zealots, killjoys, enviro-Nazis and NIMBYs are plotting vengefully, stealthily and feverishly to come up with something that will make the shameful, reprehensible, ill-considered Sydney Harbour ban look like an innocuous traffic-calming scheme.

So what exactly is the point? What does The Skipper suggest? The answer is that he suggests nothing…….other than that, as an industry, we should stiffly brace and prepare ourselves. Whilst it’s only gut instinct, we need to be ready for another rabid, virulent onslaught on this exciting, innovative and environmentally-attuned segment of our industry. The Skipper’s thinks it’s maybe time to man the pumps in an advanced state of readiness for a storm of bureaucratic bilge and a nanny-state tsunami of vindictive and regressive legislation that could well send PWCs the way of the tramp steamer. It’s time to pick our best, most persuasive advocates and also, as the Americans might say, “get lawyered up”! Don’t say you haven’t been warned.