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[troutbreath]

Jet boaters bring 'wild west' to the water
Upper Pitt River has been the site of four sinkings, Saturday's the most recent
 
Larry Pynn
Vancouver Sun


Thursday, July 03, 2008


The sinking of a fourth jet boat on the upper Pitt River this year is raising concerns about safety in the remote Lower Mainland wilderness watershed best known for its quality fishing experience.

"It's been the wild, wild west up here," Pitt River Lodge owner Dan Gerak said Tuesday. "There is no policing up here, so it is getting crazy."

Jet boaters rarely wear life jackets, often drink alcohol and on occasion pull ashore to fire their guns, he said.

While "half of them are very respectful" of the river, he said, others consider the upper Pitt a "place where they can get away with whatever they want as there is no way the police can get up the river to check them for anything."

Ridge Meadows RCMP refused to provide anyone to comment on the problem Tuesday.

The upper Pitt River is a popular catch-and-release fishing stream that flows into the north end of Pitt Lake about 60 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, and is not connected by road to the rest of the Lower Mainland.

Gerak said it's fortunate that no one has died in any of the four sinkings so far this year, but fears a tragedy is just around the corner.

"It won't be long before someone gets killed," said Gerak, an award-winning conservationist whose lodge is located seven kilometres upstream from the lake.

"This river is more and more popular for jet boats and is very dangerous with all the sweepers from the erosion and the trees falling down."

Gerak said the latest sinking occurred Saturday, when a 6.5-metre Washington state boat with two persons aboard crashed into a sweeper, a tree protruding from the river bank.

The vessel "rolled over just below the lodge and two people got trapped underneath as the boat was going down the river," he said.

One person wearing a life jacket took a couple of breaths under the hull then pushed himself out. The water was so cold he did not have the energy to swim to shore and just floated into slack water, Gerak said.

The second person had no life jacket and "pushed himself out just in the nick of time because the boat got grounded on the bottom where there would have been no chance to escape."

In another incident earlier this spring, a jet boat carrying a family of four also hit a sweeper and flipped, Gerak said.

"One boy was trapped under the boat for a couple of minutes, the only one that had a life jacket on. He luckily popped out after a couple of minutes."

Gerak said his fishing guides, who float downstream on rafts, are at risk from jet boaters speeding along the river.

The federal government is loath to restrict public access to navigable waters except for safety reasons and only after extensive public consultations.

Unlike conventional boats with propellers exposed to the elements, a jet boat sucks water into an impeller unit, which expels it at high speed to push the boat along.

Jet boats must be operated at relatively high speeds to plane across the surface, and are least manoeuvrable when travelling downstream.

lpynn@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

[Mike D.]

That article makes me feel sick...completely slamming jet boaters in a whole....nothing against the Lodge, but they were the ones trying to get jet boats banned from that river a good 5-6 yrs ago as they claimed that jboats were ruining the redds and environment for the fish.....(since then they now own one) so their view is a total biased opinion...

but what reely needs to be looked at is.....

with the way that our $$$ is at current times, and hell the banks will give u money for anything. Its so easy to obtain a jet boat. And for some reason people are wanting to run remote rivers like the pitt! I think they watch too many videos and see to many pictures on these rivers...they do not notice that these are trained professionals.....but the parts they do not see about the rivers are those that the "co pilot" cannot catch on video as he is holding onto the holy cupcakes handles for dear life!

I wish people would get their crap together and learn that they need to have several years of experience running rivers...not just the main flows of the harrison and fraser either....anyone can run those in a 12 foot lund with an 9.9 prop on them.....good experience running back waters and skinny channels in the winter is a great way to learn how to run shallow and mean water! (thats how I learned) and I am no where near ready for the pitt by any means.....

But sometimes it happens to the best of them...fate comes to bite people in the my friend....

I wish more people would sign up for jet boat clinics and such when they first buy their new boats....as insurance rates are only going up!

my 2 cents
Mike

[bentrod]

Good advice Mike.  Same thing goes for us prop boaters and those jet ski users.  In general, there are way too many idiots on the water without a clue as to what the rules are.  It's one thing when they take their own lives in their hands, but that's never the case.  They involve rescuers and all too many times end up having passengers on their boats. 

For the most part, those idiots are not us fisher people or hunters, it's the recreational people AKA "trailer park" people who got a cheap loan and wanted to party on the water.  So now, not only do we end up paying for their rescues, we also pay higher insurance rates and loan rates because they are defaulting on their loans.  We are also subjected to an increase in restrictions.

[troutbreath]

I wondered if the owners tried to get there boats back. It would be a good (cheap) way to get a jet boat by going in there late summer when the water was low and flipping the puppy over

[Bhinky]

When I was about 14 or 15 I was water skiing behind our boat in Cultus Lake, and a jet skier was not paying attention and went for our wake. He didn't even notice that I was behind the boat until the last minute (my dad was yelling at him). He turned sharply to avoid the rope just as I cut out of the wake and went through the wake right where I would have been.........crazy. Since that day, my dad has sworn he was going to shoot the next one that came that close with the flare gun...haha

[canso]

For the most part, those idiots are not us fisher people or hunters, it's the recreational people AKA "trailer park" people who got a cheap loan and wanted to party on the water.  So now, not only do we end up paying for their rescues, we also pay higher insurance rates and loan rates because they are defaulting on their loans.  We are also subjected to an increase in restrictions.

thats funny, I think your a little mixed-up.  the "trailer park" people are the hunters and fishers.  The yuppies or wanabe's are the ones with the fat loans and new toy's.

[bcguy]

KARMA