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So I’m out in the middle of Table Rock last Saturday, which was an absolutely gorgeous Indian summer day. I know it was a Saturday and a nice day because there were oodles and oodles of boats on the lake that looked nothing like fishing boats. Everyone out for the last boat ride of the year before Old Man Winter comes to town. House boats, pontoon boats, wake boats, and these HUGE cruisers. As I’m bobbing up and down from the wake off one of these cruisers, I’m thinking why do you need a 42 foot cruiser in a lake?
We’re not talking about a lake the size of Erie. We’re not talking about Lake Champlain. We’re not talking about the Potomac River or even the Tennessee River. All those places you can travels for days in the same direction without seeing the same scenery twice. In the Tennessee River, you can actually travel for months without passing the same point twice. You can take a trip from Chattanooga all the way down to New Orleans, then up the East Coast, to the St. Lawrence Seaway, through the Great Lakes and back to the Mississippi River; that’s a trip for a big boat. But we’re talking about Table Rock lake here. 43,100 acres. 67 miles from Table Rock Dam to Beaver Dam, where there is just a concrete dam – no lock. Landlocked. Get it? You ain’t going far in a 42 foot SeaRay. Where are you going to go in a boat this size in a pond? All you are is a Chunky Monkey pushing a bunch of water around in a little bathtub, which is where my beef with these scows comes down.
So I’m out in the pond Saturday and two of these 42 footers come cruising by. Before we go any further, one thing to keep in mind for those who have never been to TRock, this is basically a wide spot in two rivers. Rock on both sides of the lake in many places; rock bluff, at that. The widest part of the whole lake might be a mile and a half wide across the channel. There are some straight runs of the lake that might be 8-10 miles long, but only a mile to two miles (being generous) in width. We’re not talking lots of room to run here.
As these two 42’s go by, they’re playing Chunky Monkey in the bath tubby. The first one has the throttle cracked open just enough to create a nice rolling swell. His back up has it cracked open to what I assume is normal operating procedure, which must have a little red arrow labeled “BAW” for Big Ass Wake. Even the bigger runabouts and wake boats were slowing down, way down, to cross the wakes from these dudes. I’ve seen boats this size running out in Lake Erie and even at WOT, they move some water. They’re big boats, would you expect anything less? But when one of them is just plowing and pushing instead of planing, it gets downright ugly. Put that scow in a bathtub like TRock, with rock bluffs on each side and it gets really ugly. Those BAW’s go out to the rock bluff and bounce right back out to the middle, only to meet their cousins coming in from the bluff on the other side. Try that in the bathtub tonight and you’ll get the picture.
Don’t take this the wrong way, as I’m sure someone will. I think these boats are beautiful – in the ocean. If I had a place at Key West, I’d love to have one. Nah, who am I kidding? I wouldn’t want one. I do think they are sweet boats, though. Just not so sweet in a lake the size of TRock. Whatever happened to “you are responsible for your wake”? Is that not a law in the state of Missouri? Do you really think that a 3 foot wake coming off one of these Chunky Monkeys isn’t doing some damage to something before it dissipates? How about those docks out on the main drag? The boats in those docks? What are they, collateral damage? Wonder what the dock owners think about these BAW’s? I don’t know why I didn’t whip out the Droid and take a few snaps as these things were pushing by. Brain fart.
Hey, I’m, all about he who dies with the most toys wins, but at some point you hit the absurd level and I think this might be just over the line. We won’t even get into the offshore race boat that I saw shortly before the Chunkies came by. Glad I wasn’t on Lake of the Ozarks, as it’s surely over the absurd line when it comes to Chunky Monkey’s. Wha…? Wha…? Are we trying to over compensate for a lack of something here guys? Are we just trying to show that we have more money than common sense or am I just missing the boat?
K-Pink Bobbing
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