LOTO to limit boat size
 

GOOD: Shoreline Management Plan champions limit on boat size



Saturday, December 1, 2007 8:43 AM CST



The proposed AmerenUE Shoreline Management Plan for Lake of the Ozarks is long and involved and covers a lot of bases. How well those bases are covered - or not - depends on just where one’s ox is standing on the shore.

One aspect of the plan is good on its face and should be generally accepted.

In the future, boat slips on Lake of the Ozarks would be limited to 60 feet. This addresses a longstanding debate about how big the next boat plunked into the lake will be. If the owner wants it in a slip, it will be somewhere around 60 feet.

This is a de facto limiting of boat size. It stops the inevitable ‘keep up with the Joneses’ boat-size race that, left without restriction, would end only when some gold-chain wearing one-upman had a boat that could not be turned around in the main channel.

Boat sales should not suffer because the ‘bigger, better, best’ race can be concentrated on accessories and upgrades. There is a demand for this. One need only note how many big boaters insist on having a craft to be used on a 100-mile long, mile-wide lake armed with the very latest in GPS technology.

If you are lost on Lake of the Ozarks, you deserve to be and should be left to starve. Which seems unlikely on boats with refrigerators. If you are lost, go to a bar - they are everywhere along the shoreline and the nice people there will save you.

The new boat marketing push can be for 60-footers with plush interiors, jetted tubs, bigger TVs, more obnoxious stereos. The race is not over, it has just changed tracks.

This is a good idea and we applaud AmerenUE for having the guts to propose it.

http://lakeexpo.com/articles/2007/12...ice/blog05.txt

no mention of tonage which is the real issue. :rolleyes:

IMO, limiting dock slip size to 60 feet won't do a thing. All they have to do is back in and get a custom cover for the bow. It looks good on paper though.

The tonnage/displacement is what needs to be addressed. A 70' houseboat doesn't have the displacement and does not cause any bigger wake than a 20 footer.

No has to fit in the slip and or 60 feet including sticking out but not more that 5 feet past the end of the slip:

The maximum boat slip size shall not exceed 60 feet in length. Any watercraft moored
within slips shall not extend beyond the mouth of the slip; except where adequate setback
exists and maximum allowable lengths are not exceeded, watercraft moored in slips may
extend beyond the mouth of the slip no more than 5 feet provided the entire watercraft
falls beneath the roof overhang of the dock and the total length of overhang and slip
length combined does not exceed 60 feet.

Thats a little better. At least it will stop some of the insanity with who can be the biggest.

Yea, but still didn't do anything about tonnage though. Now they will just go up 3 stories and add a helo pad :(

At least they're aware of the problem and trying to address it. Maybe this would be a first step, tonnage could be addressed subsequently. I think something needs to be done or we'll see a 100-footer before too long. Boy and their toys...

the other part of the plan the author didn't mention was that boats over 30 feet cant be on plane within 300 feet of the dock or shore.... so the coves that have less than 600 feet between docks or shore (many of them) will be no wake to nearly everybody but jet skis...

i can see water patrol wasting there time driving around with tape measures checking docks, slips, overhangs.... good use of resources.

sounds like the lake is getting crowded.

The area from the 1mm to 30mm is very crowded on weekends and getting more crowded all the time.

Darn it!! So much for getting that 70' Viking Sportfish I was checkin out.

In all seriousness, The length of the vessel isn't the issue, but rather ignorant operators. Before you know it the Gravois arm will be no wake for boats over 30' and then we'll see who's cheering about it.

For me I don't aspire to have anything bigger than a 47' on that particular body of water but I certainly don't like being told that if I wanted to go over 60' I couldn't.