Quote:
Originally Posted by Garcia
I don’t think you can moor your boat and sleep on it on Lake George. You can reserve a campsite on a state owned island, but if you don’t have a reservation, cannot just drop anchor and spend the night.
There are not any state owned islands on Winnipesaukee, so I don’t see a system like Lake George ever happening.
I don’t have a philosophical issue with someone spending a night on a public dock, but from a practical point of view see nothing but problems. Public dock space is already at a premium and the three hour time is often ignored. On a summer night the docks in Meredith are often full until 8:00 at night, sometimes later. What time would someone be able to pull up for the night - and what time would they have to leave?
I’m not that familiar with Champlain or the Thousand Islands. My guess, and it’s just that, is that they must have more spaces available to the public than Winnipesaukee. Also, in either of those areas can you anchor wherever you want and sleep on board, or do you have to be at a dock?
Regardless of how any of us feel about the issue, the reality is that the rules as they currently exist are not going to change.
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You absolutely can anchor overnight on Lake George. I've done it and it was fun. We shared our anchorage with about a dozen other boats and it was peaceful and quiet. The island camp sites are more for boats that don't have berths.
The LRCT owns some islands and are missing a great opportunity to put them to better use by not encouraging camping on them, IMO. There are very good examples of the same sort of thing happening with great success on nearby lakes. Valcourt, Knights, and Burton Islands on Champlain (there are probably more...) all successfully allow camping of various types ranging from wilderness camping to rental cabins. Obviously Lake George is famous for its island camp sites.
Champlain allows overnight anchoring and while most towns do not have overnight transient docks, there are plenty of marinas that do, mainly because plenty of slips are empty when people leave them to go anchor overnight or visit the islands that allow camping etc. The marinas get to rent the empty slips out at a very good profit (the slips are already paid for so they get to double dip at an inflated short term rate) and everybody wins. For this reason alone, I'm surprised Winnipesaukee marinas aren't actively advocating to allow overnight anchoring and overnight use of town docks.
1000 Islands allows overnight anchoring and the towns have transient dockage too. There area also tons of islands that allow camping, and have moorings and docks to use.
For an even closer example, one could also look at Portsmouth NH to see how allowing overnight docking at a public dock works. They get $2 a foot for transients by Prescott park and it works very well for the city and boaters. We docked near there a few weeks ago and had a fantastic evening.
If Meredith charged 2 bucks a foot and allowed overnight docking, I bet many of those boats that are there until 8 PM would just stay for the night and spend more money at local businesses. I bet they could easily get 4 bucks a foot at high season too... Many of those boats that spent the night would likely leave an empty slip at a marina somewhere that could rent out the slip for the night. It all cascades and makes great use of resources that currently go unused all night, every night.
In my experience, most of NH is the exception when it comes to these things. For a state full of towns that rely heavily on tourism, that seems like a bad plan to me. I guess they can just raise lakefront property tax to offset the lost revenue though.