DAVID Barnicoat draws attention to the potential danger arising from speeding boats (August 2) and which he attributes to "unseamanlike behaviour." The word unseamanlike has a quaint ring to it and is absolutely correct but is, unfortunately, a quality which an increasing percentage of those who go afloat do not possess, never will, and is unknown to the "ignorant owners" he refers to and arises from the increasing change in the use of the sea from a place of work to a place of play.

This charge is facilitated by the easy availability of watercraft due to mass-production methods requiring very little commitment on the part of owners to care and maintenance. The acquisition of a boat now can be merely the gratification of a readily available, possibly short-lived lifestyle choice, whereas years ago, due to the involvement required, it was not and which itself tended to develop a seamanlike approach in pleasure boat owners.

Perhaps more pertinently though, the vast majority of powered craft were of displacement type, ie slow, and therefore did not pose much of a danger to others - whereas now nobody seems to want anything that can't go on the plane, ie is fast, which also caters to those who merely wish to enjoy the sensation of whizzing about for an hour or so as an alternative to a white-knuckle ride at Alton Towers. And it is this whizzing about that is the problem!

So speed allied to play is the problem to which the only answer is the ability to impose enforceable maximum speed limits. There is no way one can expect the majority of persons in charge of pleasure watercraft to abide by "the common practice of seamen."

M C Wood, Longare Road, Dronfield, Derbyshire