Email: Drunken boaters abroad too

Alcohol and driving whatever vehicle does not mix, that's for sure. Sadly enough, we see this happening every summer here in the Netherlands.

German groups of men hiring a yacht, cases of beer stacked on deck in plain sight... And yes, in the same plain sight mostly the driver is drinking as well....

And when something goes wrong, most of the times it goes horribly wrong. People like that don't care about other traffic, drunk as they are, and end up being run into by a commercial vessel.

Guess who gets the worst cards in such an event? Yes, the commercial captain gets the blame at first. Although trauma-help will be offered afterwards, it's ridiculous that the fingers are pointed towards the person with 'papers'.

A serious problem that has to be dealt with by the proper authorities. Also, hire-companies should do a better check on who they hire their vessels to.

Ed Frankes. m/v Eemspoort

(Who didn't have the 'luck' of running over any boats, thankfully, but did have to navigate around such groups and of course report them to authorities.)