RECKLESS OPERATION
Maximum Speed
No vessel shall, under any condition or in any manner, exceed forty (40) miles per hour, except during authorized race events and patrol vessels operating in emergencies.
Prohibited Operation
- The term “wake” means a movement of the water created by a boat underway, great enough to disturb a boat at rest, but under no circumstances shall a boat underway exceed five (5) miles per hour while in a posted wakeless area. The term “above a wakeless speed” means operating a vessel at such a speed as to create a wake. No person shall operate any vessel in such a manner as to create a wake, when such waters or parts thereof are posted by signs or marked by buoys prohibiting a wake.
- Persons operating vessels which pass within one hundred fifty feet of any swimming area, moored vessel, person on shore engaged in fishing, or person in a vessel engaged in servicing buoys or markings shall reduce the speed of the vessels in order to prevent the wash or wake of the vessel from causing damage or inconvenience.
- No person shall operate a motorboat with any person riding or sitting on either the starboard or port gunwales thereof, or on the decking over the bow, or in any other unsafe position except when the boat is being moored or anchored.
- No person shall operate or offer for rent any vessel which is overloaded, or unseaworthy, taking into consideration rated capacities, weather, type of construction, and other existing conditions.
- No person shall operate or anchor a vessel within one hundred fifty feet of any person on shore engaged in fishing, except where narrow passages or coves make such operation restrictions impractical.
It is unlawful for any person to operate a vessel in a careless or imprudent manner without due regard for zoning, traffic, which includes:
- Becoming airborne or completely leaving the water while crossing the wake of another vessel at an unsafe distance from the vessel creating the wake or when visibility around such vessel is obstructed;
- Unsafely weaving through vessel traffic;
- Operating at such a speed and proximity to another vessel so as to require the operator of either vessel to abruptly swerve or to abruptly cut speed in order to avoid collision.
- It is unlawful for any person to operate a vessel in a reckless manner.
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