Do boats leave big problems in their wake?

In the boating community, of which I’m a member, there has been some discussion recently about the negative effects of the wash or wake that boats produce.

The debate is pretty well confined to the effects on sheltered inland waterways where there are no large natural waves.

With people having a bit more money to spend there has been a big increase in the number of speed boats, jet skis and very fast cruisers on our lakes and rivers. They can produce a considerable wash that can cause erosion to the banks of rivers and canals. It can also cause annoyance to anglers sitting quietly on a lake shore or somebody on a slow cruiser who’s lifting a kettle of boiling water off his gas ring.