Photos courtesy of Violette de Ayala
Audio By Carbonatix
Last Monday, Miami Rowing Club coach Yamel Ortiz was training teenage girls during their usual weekday practice at the Miami Marine Stadium basin off the coast of Virginia Key when three Jet Skis sped toward them with a frothy, white wake that threatened to flip the rowboats.
Ortiz, who was instructing from a small boat equipped with an outboard motor, signaled to the Jet Skiers to slow down. Instead, as video footage (embedded below) shows, two men deliberately accelerated toward her, and then recklessly circled around her. Momentarily, their wake completely swallows Ortiz and she nearly capsizes.
“There was a lot of water, but I saw the face of one of them and he was making fun of me,” Ortiz tells New Times. “The wake was very strong – I almost fell over. I thought, Now, I am in danger.”
For more than 40 years, the Miami Rowing Club has practiced in the Miami Marine Stadium basin, which offers a 1,500-meter, seven-lane course ideal for training and racing. In 2014, the City of Miami designated the area a “slow speed, minimum wake” zone, meaning anyone whose boat is not fully settled in the water can be issued a citation. But ever since residents and tourists flocked to the water at the start of the COVID-19 lockdowns, coaches and parents have noticed a drastic uptick in speeding party boats and Jet Skiers in the usually calm waters of the inlet, posing a threat to the safety of the more than 100 kids who practice at the basin on weekday evenings.
“The situation is horrible and getting worse every day. I have over 300 videos documenting [the harassment],” Miami Rowing Club head coach Cesar Herrera Lopez tells New Times. “[The Jet Skiers] don’t care about anything, they don’t respect anybody, and they don’t seem to care if they are killed. They already risked the life of a coach.”
For two years, the Miami Rowing Club and a band of nonmotorized watercraft users who frequent the basin, including kayakers, paddleboarders, and a Dragon Boat squad of breast cancer survivors, petitioned elected officials for better signage and enforcement of boating speeds in the basin. Late last year, boat patrols increased and four “SLOW SPEED, MINIMUM WAKE” signs went up. For a while, the area quieted down. Dolphins and manatees returned. But after last week’s incident, Miami Rowing Club coaches and parents worry that Jet Skiers are targeting them in retaliation for their activism.
“We fought to get the signs up, but it’s getting really bad: We had to call the police three times in the past eight days,” says rowing club board member Violette de Ayala. “They think it’s funny to scare the kids. They target the coaches and kids alike – anyone who is not going fast.”
De Ayala began frequenting the Miami Marine Stadium basin on a sailboat with her father back in the 1980s. Her older daughter rowed in the basin as a teenager, and as a concerned parent, she worried for her safety but nothing like how she now worries for her youngest daughter who practices there every weekday and Saturday morning. The wakes from the speeding Jet Skis have already flipped kids out of their boats, she says. Over the past few years, two Jet Skiers suffered fatal injuries as the result of accidents in the basin. (One was run over by a boat, the other lost control of their watercraft and collided with a concrete structure.)
“My daughter rows in that water and I hope that she’s not killed,” De Ayala says. “It’s just a matter of time before someone is killed.”
Parents, who often watch the practices from the shore, have created a WhatsApp group documenting instances of speeding and harassment. Whenever a boat or personal watercraft speeds through the basin, an alert goes out and everyone in the group immediately calls 911. If the marine patrol is nearby, officers can quickly intervene and ticket violators of the slow-speed ordinance. The problem, De Ayala explains, is that if officers are busy or attending to another crisis elsewhere, rowers are left to fend for themselves.
“Marine patrol are kind and sweet, but they are short-staffed,” she says. “We need more police helping out.”
After De Ayala posted a video of last week’s incident on her personal Instagram account, Miami City Commissioner Ken Russell commented that he’s connecting Miami Police Chief Manny Morales with the rowing club coaches.
“We are increasing our presence during the rowing sessions for the safety of our kids,” Russell wrote. “I am also implementing a dedicated rowing lane as a motorized vessel exclusion zone.”
