Before Posting, Please Read Our Posting Guidelines Below.
1. Use the full 4 digit year for everything you are asking your question about. Example: 1962, 1988, 2000, 2011 2. Include the correct name of your Whaler model. Example: Montauk 17, Montauk 170, Outrage 26, Outrage 260 3. Include the length when necessary. Example: 16, 17, 18, 20, 22 4. Do not post your email address anywhere on this site as it is already in your user profile.
This is an amazing situation. I was not there at the time, but was boating about 10 miles away and could very well have been there in my Whaler.
In brief, a brand new naval attack vessel was evidently cruising by at 30 knots or better, creating a huge wake which washed ashore on Chambers Island WI, a very popular beach rafting area in the middle of Green Bay. Generally, the area has shallow sandy beaches where people come to anchor, raft-up, party and swim in the 2 to 3' water off the beach. The Bay was dead calm on this particular Labor Day weekend day. Then the ship's wake hit them out of nowhere!
It is a fact that a vessel of that tonnage and obvious electric driven propulsion should have given fair warning upon doing it's naval try outs.
There is no doubt that in the future this "oversight" should not happen again as I am convinced that proper procedures will be followed.
Back in the early eighty's the same thing happened to us in Washington when a Navy ship out of recent overhaul and was doing fast runs and created huge wave as Puget Sound Naval Shipyard was having their annual Salmon derby. We were at Point No Point and the wash from the ship totally bashed a lot of boats tied to the dock at the weigh station and the boats that beached on the shore. They ended up paying a lot of money for the damage.. I was off shore but saw the event. Seek legal counsel.
