This week’s SPAR involves the inevitable aging process. Sometimes I read these stories, sometimes I don’t. Regardless, stay aboard. Rough seas lately. They’ll calm. ~J
If you just dove into our very engaging little community, please read SPARS & SPARRING, .….it introduces my wonders and my wanders. ~J
For this edition, I was going to share with you a thought-provoking, awe-inspiring poet, Navy Veteran and lover of all things boat, nature, & humanity but you’re not getting that. I’m sorry. You will. Promise. It’s a work in progress that I could not concentrate on this week.
I received a(nother?) single phone call, and made a(nother?) decision that was both easy and complicated, one which changed everything from that moment forward. Sometimes it happens like that, doesn’t it? The required modification of logistics got me where I needed to be, and that place is one I told you about just last week. As we’ve often discussed here, SPARRING or not, I believe that all things fall into place. This time, definitely. You know what I mean. We all have this in common, an unrelenting, unforeseen set of adjustments to our best laid plans. Not a week goes by, really, that something doesn’t surprise you, keep you on your toes, and remind you to appreciate what you have. Fortunately I have the flexibility to pack up this computer and take my work along for the ride.
On Tuesday I left the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay at 4am EST and took in the New York City skyline at 8:15. It’s never as I remember it; 25 years later I still expect to see the Twin Towers, the World Trade Center, which fell on 9-11-2001. Interstate 87 north of NYC might be the least-traveled in this nation and I followed it north through the Adirondack Park for what is probably the 400th time, give or take a few. My entire life, with random frequency, has pulled me through this region of North America. By 1pm I parked at the depressingly-busy hospital, ready for the barrage of emotions that would accompany this particular visit to ‘Comfort Care’ (read: hospice). At age 93, my friend recognized me. There’s a lot of gratification in that, and a lot of sadness in the friends and family who sit, bedside, awaiting what will eventually happen to all of us. The support of the still-very-much-alive is why I’m here.
Looking east across Lake Champlain, just after sunrise.
Last week I introduced (or reintroduced) you to the 6,000,000 acre Adirondack Park in New York State, US. If you have set foot within these boundaries, (the “Blue Line”) or live within them, you have experienced a revolutionary concept in cooperation between public and private lands. It’s not always easy. I lived and played within the Park, more or less, for my first twenty years; I relish going back.
Undoubtedly my favorite landmark is the 1912 Firetower Lookout on an enticing mound of granite called, equally compellingly, Poke-O-Moonshine Mountain. When I lived in this area during my father’s illness 2016-2019 I climbed the soul-soothing peak as often as I could. My first days here this time were spent with the friend in hospice, but the third day I got up at the same 4am crack of dawn and climbed that mountain, as I have every time I’ve visited since I went to liveaboard STEADFAST. Each time it is more stunning than I remembered. Not that many things are better than you recalled them to be, and I treasure that.
Dappled morning sun on the granite steps.
The elevation gain is 1280 feet in 1.8 miles, total height 2180 or 664M. These mountains are the oldest in North America and reportedly even the planet, worn down over the last two billion years or so, yet these stubborn beauties (including Whiteface Mountain/Lake Placid, New York, which hosted the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics) still persist in their stubborn uplift (no wonder I feel the vibe) of 1 to 3 mm per year. Frankly, that’s not much, a third of a meter per century, but it’s a hell of a force nonetheless. Hard to measure, hard to imagine. Mention Poke-O-Moonshine in rock and ice-climbing circles, and the nods of respect will most certainly happen. My legs took me up a non-technical but damn steep trail, three layers of a cake-like mountain structure full of energy, peace and challenge. The fire lookouts were deactivated in 1988, but you can climb the bottom five sets of steps to acquire a stunning 360-degree view.
This is the very trail my maternal grandparents hiked on their first date in 1930 or so, when Pearl was a one-room schoolteacher (almost-spinster at 26) in very rural Malone, New York with a woodstove for heat and Don was an industrial arts teacher almost close enough to make the courtship practical.
Their relationship wasn’t always companionable but clearly worked because here I am, writing this to you during days of reminiscing and appreciating the worth of those closest to you. It is not our blood that matters, it is the characters of the friends you have chosen to surround you, to be your family, and the dedication of those who show up at times like this, plans interrupted, putting aside their normal preoccupied worlds to focus on the importance of life, loss and love. That’s what I did this week, and I’m still up there, thirty miles from the Canadian border, spending precious time. ~J
Headed to the Adirondacks? Need a rustic place to shack up? Nothing better than Adirondack Lean-tos. Conceived as early as 1800, these gave shelter to explorers of all sorts and the extensive system of huts became a state program in 1919. Under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal hundreds were constructed by the federal government (Civilian Conservation Corps) in the 30s and maintained voluntarily by members of the Adirondack Mountain Club. A blast from the past, for sure. Some things are still free and worth the effort. I know I’m craving those and I’d guess you are, too. Seek them out and take care of them.
My father was one of the volunteers who maintained NY’s network of lean-tos.
Thanks as always for staying aboard these sometimes rough, sometimes heavenly passages. Everybody has a story.— if you don’t believe that just check my website… I try to always stop and listen. Heard anything this week worth relaying? I thought so. If you’re so inclined, please pass it on. I’m wishing you peace.
Cruisers Net publishes Loose Cannon articles with Captain Swanson’s permission in hopes that mariners with saltwater in their veins will subscribe. $7 per month or $56 for the year; you may cancel at any time.
The alleged problem with these boats is not going fast but when they decelerate and, according to one lawsuit, “take on water, nose-dive, and capsize.”
Two separate Florida legal teams recently filed class-action lawsuits against BRP, the manufacturer of the Sea-Doo Switch, the jet powered pontoon boat with a propensity for flipping over forward.
“What BRP did not disclose to consumers—at all— is that the Switch boats feature defective designs that render them completely unsafe, unfit for normal use, and essentially floating death traps,” wrote Attorney Stuart Davidson, on behalf of a team of Florida lawyers who filed suit on July 17.
In seeking compensation for all Switch buyers, the lawsuit also alleged that the Canadian company’s marketing targeted people least able to pilot watercraft safely to begin with:
BRP’s acts and practices were unfair because they were immoral, unethical, oppressive, unscrupulous, and substantially injurious to consumers. BRP knew that the Switch boats were being purchased and used by a particularly vulnerable group of people, including first-time boat owners and families; knew that consumers would naturally assume the Switch boats were safe for normal use; and knew that the Switch boats were not, in fact, safe or fit for use because of the defects.
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Gainesville, Florida, representing Ariana Maria Renee Adkins of Archer as the named plaintiff. If the court approves the suit as a class-action, all Switch owners will be added.
The Adkins case comes on the heels of another class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Miami on June 25. This team of Florida lawyers includes the firm of Goldberg & Golden, which also represents the family of a little girl from North Florida in a separate case that seeks compensation for the permanent brain damage she suffered when their Switch flipped on the St. Johns River.
Representative plaintiffs in the initial suit are: Lori Long of Palm Beach, James Abreu of Lee County, Scott Bauer of Lee County and Craig Corlew, who spends part of the year in the Florida Keys.
Both suits make the same argument that a design flaw that allowed water to get inside Switch hulls tended to shift forward on deceleration, plunging the boat’s bows into the water and causing it to flip. The second suit—the one filed at Gainesville—also alleges that the same water intrusion created a host of other problems, including corrosion, engine damage, electrical failures, propulsion loss, fault codes and near-sinking events.
Both suits also allege that three BRP corrective actions—sealent repair in February 2025, a gasket repair in October 2025 and software throttle control measure in May 2026—all failed to fix problems caused by poor hull design.
Besides the badly injured Florida girl, four Switch passengers have died after a forward flip. In October, the U.S. Coast Guard declared that these vessels presented a “capsizing hazard.”
“These capsizings have occurred when the vessel was operated with trim by the bow and the bow ‘digging into’ the water. Weather conditions and poor seamanship do not appear to be significant contributing factors,” Coast Guard investigators wrote.
The compensation theory for both suits is the monetary harm to Switch buyers, who paid top dollar for a boat, which has lost resale value as the world has learned of its hithertoo undisclosed safety issues.
Here’s an example of harsh words that the Gainesville lawsuit lawyers had for BRP:
BRP marketed the very design feature that makes the Switch boats dangerous—the tri-hull configuration—as a source of safety and stability. On its website and in materials disseminated to consumers, BRP represented that the Switch’s “Tri-hull design creates a whole new feeling on a pontoon,” that “[t]he outer pontoons are set slightly higher in the water, adding confident stability and nimble performance,” and that the design combines “the stability and versatility of a pontoon boat with the agility and performance of a Sea-Doo jet boat.”
BRP likewise touted its Intelligent Brake and Reverse system as making the Switch safer and easier to stop, representing that the system “greatly reduces stopping distances” and gives operators “more control and maneuverability at low speeds.” These representations were untrue, deceptive, and misleading: the same tri-hull design and low-speed deceleration that BRP marketed as sources of “confident stability” and “control” are, as BRP’s own recalls and the U.S. Coast Guard later confirmed, the mechanism by which the Switch boats take on water, nose-dive, and capsize.
When two class-action lawsuits are filed making the same claims against the same company, the courts usually try to stop wasted effort and messy rulings. The judges may consolidate the cases into one single lawsuit, pause one case until the other finishes, or dismiss the duplicate filing.
LOOSE CANNON covers hard news, technical issues and nautical history. Every so often he tries to be funny. Subscribe for free to support the work. If you’ve been reading for a while—and you like it—consider upgrading to paid.
Cruisers Net publishes Loose Cannon articles with Captain Swanson’s permission in hopes that mariners with saltwater in their veins will subscribe. $7 per month or $56 for the year; you may cancel at any time.
Be the first to comment!