Originally posted this deep in another thread, but thought I would edit it for errors and repost and open for comments and feedback. I certainly did not begrudge the large boaters for not slowing down. Even though the wakes are large and we rocked a lot. I still understood those things burn a lot of gas and, heck, I'm a sailboat and can take a wave or two. That wasn't the issue. I guess the biggest thing was people just continuing to push me on over and out-of-the-way. Lots of boats would approach me head on and then turn just a little at the last minute. Also, I had fists shaken at me during the really trafficy periods when I was trying to maneuver the boat safely waiting on the bridge operator. There was one absolutely horrendous bridge experience. It was the "something something" federal drawbridge. It was a bridge that opened upon request. I had already been through several bridges and sort of understood the technique. Also I realized that they do not like to hold the traffic longer than necessary so I call out at the earliest possible moment to request the opening. If I was told that they would open "as soon as possible" I would begin to motor forward to the bridge. I would watch for the gates to go down then power up fully trying to make the bridge crossing as rapidly as possible.. I followed the same procedures at the "something something" federal bridge just north of North Palm Beach. The boating traffic was exceptionally heavy at this point. However the "soon as possible" must not have actually met soon as possible because when I got within about 600 feet of the bridge the Gate had still not gone down! at this point I signaled to everyone around me that I was going to have to loop. I made a large circle being as careful as possible but still angered many of the boaters. When I came back around facing the bridge I was at about 500 feet away from the fendors of the bridge. Again the traffic was quite heavy and the Gate had still not gone down. So I throttle down to 1000 RPMs to try to keep a little water flowing over the rudder . Heading forward as slow as I could the traffic gates finally went down at about 200 feet outside of the fenders. Heavy heavy traffic. At this point I was moving very slowly. Lots of glares, shaking fist, and close boats with large wakes. five minutes passed. It seemed like 15. But still the bridge did not begin to open. I radio the bridge operator but got no reply. At this point I was stuck in heavy traffic. Again I had to do a loop. This time in side the fenders perimeter. And less than 25 feet from the bridge itself. The bridge was still not budging. This turnaround was sudden, and in heavy traffic but at this point I had absolutely no choice! While raking the bridge's fenders, damaging my outboard engine, and railing holding the solar panels I was able to get out and back up river. While attempting to maneuver back up river approximately one minute after getting turned around the bridge begin to open! mind you my Stern was still to the bridge at this point. So now the bridge was opening while my sailboat was pointed in the wrong direction. Shaking all over, I had to turn the boat in traffic to make it underneath the bridge. The bridge operator came on, upbraided me, and asked me to spell my name "very slowly". I ignored the request, thanked him for the opening and apologized for the trouble. What I really wanted to do was pullover, climb up the bridge and beat the living **** out of him. He knew exactly what he was doing. It may not be easy to tell from this description but the timing as I experienced it leaves no doubt. Unless he was sleeping up there. This is a rather long post and it was voice to text so I did not bother to scan it for voice to text errors, hopefully the idea gets through.
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