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I went out Sun. to my secret cove on Long Island (not so secret anymore) in my 15' sport, I had to cross an area by Jones Beach (Jones Inlet, I was still in the Bay, I would never take the 15' into the ocean) that was VERY busy with boat traffic (Nuts to be exact). A large boat about 35'+ was passing me on my starboard side, to get across this intersection (much like where Broadway meets 7 Ave in Times square at 5:15 PM) I decided to follow "JUMBO" for protection across the busy place. As most know, I'm a very safe boater, I throttled up to 1/2 power lifting the nose on the boat, and squating the rear of the boat down for stability (a perfect plow). Well "Jumbo's" HUGE wake slapped the back of my transom perfectly AND HARD, all of a sudden the little 15 footer jumped up to "Planing speed" and started surfing down this HUGE wake like a surfer "Shootin the tube", I was launched as if I was taking off from an aircraft carrier, I had no control of the boat what so ever (steering was lost). The scareiest part was that the rear of the my boat was higher than the bow at this point (while surfing down the wake at about 20 MPH), and I though for sure that the bow was going to dig into the water, and we (me, mrs. mw, and Junior) were going to spin around and flip for sure. This lasted for only about 12 to 15 seconds but, it felt like 12 or 15 years to me. The right side of the Whaler finally bit into the wave, and carried me over the wake, the rpm's dropped, and the boat settled in again under my control. I told my wife that the reason nothing happened was that we were in such a good boat, and while I think thats true, a lot of luck fell my way, VERY SCARY EXPERIANCE, I went on with my day, as if nothing had happened but, I waved to God on Sunday ! and changed my underwear when I got home, I hope this never happens to anyone else, ever !
