Safety is a concern for all of us. Sections of Laws of New York that are most egregiously violated are in bold.
No boat may exceed five miles per hour within one hundred feet of almost any object. You can check your own speed on a smartphone with any speedometer app. Five miles per hour is much slower and one hundred feet is much farther than most folks think. Using your smartphone speedometer to set your throttle to five miles per hour. Use your stopwatch on your smartphone: In 13 seconds you will have gone 95 feet.
2. Except as provided in section forty-five-cc of this part, no vessel shall be operated within one hundred feet of the shore, a dock, pier, raft, float or an anchored or moored vessel at a speed exceeding five miles per hour, unless such vessel is being operated near such shore, dock, float, pier, raft, or anchored vessel for the purpose of enabling a person engaged in water skiing to take off or land.
It is illegal to tow anyone without an observer of age ten or higher. It is illegal to tow anyone except between sunrise and sunset.
1. No person shall operate a vessel for towing a person unless there is upon such vessel a person, other than the operator, of at least ten years of age, in a position to observe the progress of the person being towed.
2. No person shall be towed or use or operate a vessel to tow a person during the period from sunset to sunrise provided, however, that the provisions of this subdivision shall not apply to a paid performer engaged in a professional exhibition.
3. No person shall be towed by a vessel without wearing a securely fastened United States Coast Guard approved personal flotation device and no person shall use or operate a vessel to tow a person not in compliance with this subdivision; provided, however, that the provisions of this subdivision shall not apply to a paid performer engaged in a professional exhibition.
4. The provisions of subdivision one of this section shall not apply to a vessel operated or controlled by the person being towed by such vessel, the design of which makes no provision for carrying an operator or observer on board. Such a vessel may not, however, be operated unless (a) it is registered and an assigned number permanently displayed thereon in accordance with sections twenty-two hundred fifty-one and twenty-two hundred fifty-four of the vehicle and traffic law; (b) it is equipped with an automatic shut-off mechanism activated whenever the operator is separated from the towing device; (c) it is equipped with a fire extinguisher and flame arrester attached to the motor; (d) the motor compartment is properly ventilated; (e) all persons being towed are wearing a securely fastened United States Coast Guard approved personal flotation device at all times of operation; and (f) other safety provisions required by section forty of this article, except the requirements of subdivisions two and three thereof relating to the use of whistles and anchors.
4-a. No person shall operate or manipulate any vessel or device for towing a person in such a way as to cause such device or any person utilizing such device to collide with or strike any object or person. The provisions of this section do not apply to collisions of two or more persons or devices being towed behind the same boat nor to collisions with ski jumps, buoys and similar objects normally used in competitive or recreational water skiing.
5. No person shall operate or manipulate a device for towing a person or be towed in a reckless or negligent manner so as to endanger the life, limb, or property of any person.
6. Any person violating any provision of this section shall be guilty of a violation punishable as set forth in section seventy-three-c of this article.
7. For the purposes of this section: (a) to tow a person shall mean the towing of a person, including utilizing a device, on the navigable waters of the state or any tidewaters bordering on or lying within the boundaries of Nassau and Suffolk counties, but shall not include the towing of persons in a vessel to which assistance is being rendered; and (b) a device shall include, but not be limited to, water skis, a tube, a surfboard, a tow rope, an aquaplane, a parasail, or a related device.
There are noise laws in New York and testing to see if a boat significantly exceeds the legal noise limit is not hard.
1. The provisions of this section shall apply to the navigable waters of the state including all tidewaters bordering on and lying within the boundaries of Nassau and Suffolk counties.
2. (a) No person shall operate or give permission for the operation of any pleasure vessel in or upon the waters of this state in such a manner as to exceed a noise level of 90dB(A) when subjected to a stationary sound level test as prescribed by SAE J2005.
2. (b) No person shall operate a pleasure vessel on the waters of this state in such a manner as to exceed a noise level of 75dB(A) measured as specified in SAE J1970. Provided, that such measurement shall not preclude a stationary sound level test as prescribed by SAE J2005.
3. Sale or manufacture. No person shall manufacture or offer for sale any pleasure vessel or engine for use in a pleasure vessel for use on the waters of this state if such vessel or engine, at the time of manufacture or sale, cannot be operated in such a manner so as to comply with the sound level requirements provided in this section.
4. No person shall operate or give permission for the operation of any pleasure vessel in or upon the waters of this state that is equipped with an altered muffler or a muffler cutout, bypass or otherwise reduce or eliminate the effectiveness of any muffler or muffler system installed in accordance with this section.
5. No person shall remove, alter or otherwise modify in any way a muffler or muffler system in a manner which will prevent it from being operated in accordance with this section.
“SAE J2005” and “SAE J1970” are noise testing standards developed by SAE. “75dB(A)” means 75 decibel sound pressure level (after adjusting or A-weighting because the ear is less sensitive to low audio frequencies). This is a logarithmic scale: An increase in 6 decibels means a doubling of the sound pressure or a quadrupling of the sound power. While precise readings require expensive equipment, any inexpensive sound pressure level meter will be accurate within a few decibels. Measurements for SAE J1970 are conducted at a distance of 50 feet at all throttle settings: the boat must not exceed 75 dB(A). A measured sound pressure level is 78 dB(A), or 3 dB above the limit (thus, twice the power level) would be significantly above the legal limit. Due to the inverse square law, doubling the measurement distance would generally result in a four-fold or 6 dB reduction in sound pressure level. The Canada Lakes Conservation Association can assist in an adequate measurement of sound pressure level.
Copyright © James McMartin Long 2017–2024