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About five years ago, Jim Hinsvark was out with a crew of dragon boaters with impaired vision on the Willamette River when a set of ocean-sized waves marched toward them.
The swell came not from a storm or some other act of God, but from a boat designed to kick up Waikiki-quality waves that can be surfed on a lake or river. Hinsvark’s long, narrow vessel survived the first three, one of which launched him 5 feet out of his bench.
“I stayed in the air, then slammed back into the boat,” Hinsvark says.
The fourth wave capsized the craft, and 22 people, some of them blind, were tossed into the water near Tilikum Crossing.
It’s just one of many encounters that paddlers have had with wake boats, the hottest thing in motorized water sports. Imagine a water ski boat on steroids. Wake boats cost as much as $300,000. They take on water as ballast to make them heavy. They chug along slowly, burning gallons of gas per session. Captains often make sharp turns to jack up even bigger waves.
Last month, wake boats flipped two more dragons from the Wasabi Paddling Club, where Hinsvark is a member, and swamped a third. The run-ins are becoming more frequent for other dragon boat clubs, too. Last week, as first reported on wweek.com, 50 dragoneers showed up at a meeting of the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners to lobby for more protection. Enforcement is handled by the county sheriff.
Organized and sensible by nature, the dragon boaters say they don’t want to ban wake boats. They just want better enforcement of the rules. In May 2021, the Oregon State Marine Board tightened regulations to create a no-wake zone on the east side of Ross Island.
Another rule: From May through September, when the river is crowded, boats can’t tow surfers, wake boarders or skiers anywhere between the Hawthorne Bridge and the Waverly Marina.
Dragon boaters say wake boats break those rules all the time. (WW went out on a dragon boat last week and, sure enough, we saw a wake boat towing a surfer just south of the Hawthorne Bridge.)
The three recent incidents involving the Wasabi club happened in areas where towing is prohibited (see map). The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office says it has just 11 deputies in its River Patrol Unit to cover 110 miles of waterway. Dragon boaters say the sheriff looks the other way.
(Correction: The original version of this story included testimony from a wake boat owner who testified that the sheriff’s river patrols don’t enforce rules governing wake surfing. The owner was talking about conditions on the upper part of the Willamette River, outside of the area where dragon boaters have been capsized, and where rules are different. WW regrets the error.)
