Re: [81attendees] hijacked thread (was: connection/ hub airport discussion)

[Curtis Villamizar <[e-mail]>]

Small sailboats (USCG defines small as under 65 ft) typically only do about 5-7 knots and keel strikes don't generally kill anything that big.  Being pushed through the water by a blunt keel is no worse than being pulled at the same speed.  It is planing hulls and prop strikes from motor boats which are going very fast in shallow water that leave the manatee no place to go and kill them.

BTW- an interesting statistic is that way more people die each year falling off the dock (usually drunk) than sailing.  There are typically only about a dozen fatalities due to sailing in the US per year including offshore sailors, vs hundreds total (mostly 700-900 per year range).  USCG reports are on the web.

But at this point we are way off topic and have by now thoroughly hijacked the thread.

Curtis

From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Ted Lemon
Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2011 10:55 AM
To: Ben Campbell
Cc: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [81attendees] The perennial air connection/ hub airport discussion

On Aug 4, 2011, at 1:48 PM, Ben Campbell wrote:
Add sailors to the list and I'm in.

The main cause of death among manatees is watercraft strikes.   So it's probably better to go with a kayak than a sailboat-the shallower keel and lower speeds are less likely to wreck your manatee-visiting experience.