Irritating loud boat

[LIforrelaxin]

So as I started to spread some facts into this discussion yesterday I though I would finish today... I did a little more looking around to day and found the information I was looking for related to the fly by sound reading and it basis at 50 feet... what I found was this... for a given distance if you increase your distance by that same amount away from a given noise source you decrease the source level by 6 db... hence at 50 ft... you can calculate a 12 db loss at 150 ft. And with the 150 ft rule no boat should be operating at speed closer then 150 feet from you.

Now with a 82 db requirement on a fly by pass at 50 feet... you can see that at 150 feet the sound should be down to 70 db at 150 ft.... Mathematically speaking of course.... now from my previous post... that puts us at the same db level as a normal conversation between two adults doesn't it... hummm even quieter then the traffic in Meredith on the weekends for all that matters....

Now on to some other points here... we are talking about db... sound pressure folks... its what causes the damage... to the ear drums... now how loud something appears is a different story all together, and depends on many many factors... such as... distance, dampening material between you and the device... room for echo.... other ambient noises at the time, etc. etc.....

These folks are the facts of the situation.... If a boat is legal... there is nothing to complain about... Because if you complain about the noise of the boats... you better complain, about the traffic in Meredith, your conversations in your yard... The vacuum cleaner, and your radio.... most people listen to their radio at a db level of around 70 - 80 dbs.....

So here is the deal... There is a existing law... it is sound in more then one way according to everything I can find... If you feel someone has a boat that doesn't conform to the law, talk to the Marine Patrol, they will investigate. Just remember the next time your out on your dock talking in the boat... your neighbor just down the shore front may call the police on you for making to much noise.

[MAXUM]

Now I won't even begin to suggest I'm an expert on the subject here, but to your point LIforrelaxin...

I'll generalize here and say that anything that is capable of making noise would thus be measurable at any particular distance which is what laws stipulate depending on what it is you're talking about. Perception of how loud they are can be relative, and in some cases depending on the situation actually may appear to be magnified. Case in point, look at the hat shell in Boston or my favorite Red Rocks in Colorado. These places one made made, the other God made have acoustical properties that appear to magnify sound. So while from a pure db perspective the noise levels may be considered acceptable in certain cases they could "appear" to be far worse. That is something that the law can't address so it is what it is and certainly not anything the operator of a boat can control. Good bad or indifferent, it's my best stab at a "very" scientific observation based on absolutely no scientific knowledge or theory in said discipline. .... it just sounds good to me!

[LIforrelaxin]

Originally Posted by MAXUM

Now I won't even begin to suggest I'm an expert on the subject here, but to your point LIforrelaxin...

I'll generalize here and say that anything that is capable of making noise would thus be measurable at any particular distance which is what laws stipulate depending on what it is you're talking about. Perception of how loud they are can be relative, and in some cases depending on the situation actually may appear to be magnified. Case in point, look at the hat shell in Boston or my favorite Red Rocks in Colorado. These places one made made, the other God made have acoustical properties that appear to magnify sound. So while from a pure db perspective the noise levels may be considered acceptable in certain cases they could "appear" to be far worse. That is something that the law can't address so it is what it is and certainly not anything the operator of a boat can control. Good bad or indifferent, it's my best stab at a "very" scientific observation based on absolutely no scientific knowledge or theory in said discipline. .... it just sounds good to me!

Maxxum,

You bring up a good point, which is why the law is written the way it is. And why a boat exhaust must be a fixed apparatus. The Marine Patrol can test a boat, record what the system design is... and then if they come back to the boat do to an issue in the future they can look at the system, verify nothing has changed, and either say the boat has been previously been tested and is ok... or say, the system has changed and the boat needs to be retested. By not allowing any switching in the system there is no question as to how the boat was running.

Now as for your acoustical reference to the hat shell and Red Rock, this is not acoustical amplification... The only way to get more power is to add more power. Both venues how ever focus the sound and project it in a direction.... Because the sound is projected correctly in these venues the required input sound to create the projected output is much less then in venues such as the Comcast Center or Meadow Brook.... where the sound is simply released into the air. These venues don't Produce louder sounds they just require less amplified input to deliver the required sound. They are also both acoustically sound meaning that they project the complete sound spectrum and don't absorb part of it thus project another area unfairly.

Now what happens in a boat... or with the cry of a loon is that sound is echo across the water much like it is in a canyon... the water is a hard surface and the sound just travels along it, until it hits something that absorbs it. Such as other sound waves, the shoreline, etc. The reason a single boat all by itself sounds so much louder then multiple boats on a busy day, is that the single set of noise waves travel further with out getting disturbed or canceled out.

Folks once again do some research this information is all available quite easily... Bottom line once again there is an already appropriate law on the books that fully handles the situation and is completely adequate... If you think you have a problem... report it...

[NoBozo]

Originally Posted by LIforrelaxin

So as I started to spread some facts into this discussion yesterday I though I would finish today... I did a little more looking around to day and found the information I was looking for related to the fly by sound reading and it basis at 50 feet... what I found was this... for a given distance if you increase your distance by that same amount away from a given noise source you decrease the source level by 6 db... hence at 50 ft... you can calculate a 12 db loss at 150 ft. And with the 150 ft rule no boat should be operating at speed closer then 150 feet from you.

Now with a 82 db requirement on a fly by pass at 50 feet... you can see that at 150 feet the sound should be down to 70 db at 150 ft.... Mathematically speaking of course.... now from my previous post... that puts us at the same db level as a normal conversation between two adults doesn't it... hummm even quieter then the traffic in Meredith on the weekends for all that matters....

Now on to some other points here... we are talking about db... sound pressure folks... its what causes the damage... to the ear drums... now how loud something appears is a different story all together, and depends on many many factors... such as... distance, dampening material between you and the device... room for echo.... other ambient noises at the time, etc. etc.....

These folks are the facts of the situation.... If a boat is legal... there is nothing to complain about... Because if you complain about the noise of the boats... you better complain, about the traffic in Meredith, your conversations in your yard... The vacuum cleaner, and your radio.... most people listen to their radio at a db level of around 70 - 80 dbs.....

So here is the deal... There is a existing law... it is sound in more then one way according to everything I can find... If you feel someone has a boat that doesn't conform to the law, talk to the Marine Patrol, they will investigate. Just remember the next time your out on your dock talking in the boat... your neighbor just down the shore front may call the police on you for making to much noise.

Here's another factor that most people are not aware of, even as a HONDA CIVIC comes tooling up the street toward you... (Actually it's a Self Propelled Sub Woofer.) The Doppler Effect makes sound measurement even more difficult to reliably deal with. NB

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppler_Effect