Keyboard Warriors

Boating forums and blogs expose how nasty people can be.

- Michael Peters

Back in the offshore racing days of the 1980s, at the time of Miami’s infamous cocaine cowboys, I knew quite a few really bad guys hanging around the boating business.

There were several years where so many racers were suspected of running drugs, that, in an effort to clean up the sport, the American Power Boat Association (APBA) had a rule that stated you couldn’t run in a sanctioned race if you were currently under indictment. When guys like that didn’t like the outcome on the race course, their response wasn’t an official protest to the officials, but more likely “I’ll throw acid in your wife’s face,” or “I’ll cut you up into alligator bait,” or just shoot up another racer’s shop with a machine gun the next morning. Not the nicest group of boaters I have ever met.