A careful start to a Hawkesbury tow
You are a licensed 30-year-old skipper planning a daytime biscuit tow behind your outboard runabout on the Hawkesbury River. You have had no alcohol. Your 15-year-old cousin offers to observe but has no boat or PWC licence. The proposed run passes 45 metres from a swimmer and 25 metres from a moored boat at 12 knots. There is room farther out to choose another route.
Before you read the solution: what would you do?
True or false?
Decide each statement before you see the answer.
An adult recreational skipper is allowed a BAC of exactly 0.05.
Watch the rider throughout the tow and leave room for their wider path.
The speed sign lets me make this wake.
Check both capacity and weight, then keep passengers safely within the boat underway.
The safe speed may be well below the sign, especially near small boats and the shore.
If the boat clears the jetty by 30 metres, the tow is clear too.
An observer is only a passenger, so age and alcohol do not matter.
On a powered boat, keep 60 metres from people in the water and 30 metres from boats, shore and structures at 6 knots or more.
A passenger can stay in the boat on the trailer if we only drive around the corner.
NSW: zero BAC under 18; below 0.05 for adults on recreational vessels.
Victoria uses an under-21 zero-BAC rule; Queensland recreational skippers must stay below 0.05.
If I drop below 6 knots, I can choose to pass right beside a swimmer.