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It’s ashame that a problem created by a large cruisers has shut such a large portion of the Lake down for everone. I can’t imagine the frustration for teams trying to get home after the shootout to make adjustments or repairs or for planners of events happing at lower mile markers with everyone stuck on the lake in miles of idle only zone. To top it off cruisers have amenities to make hours of idle comfortable. Idling for hours in the sun or rain with out protection or a bathroom is not fun. The suggestion that people simply avoid the no wake restriction by staying at a restaurant/bar until the restriction is lifted is irresponsible. Boaters after a day on the lake and/or evening in one of the restaurants/bars unfamiliiar with LOTO out in mass running after dark at 30 MPH as an answer to the problem is probably more dangerous than allowing everyone to run as they have in the past.

LOTO Water Saftey Council and MSHP need to place restrictions squarely where they belong instead of penalizing everyone before they ruin the event to the point it looses all its appeal. By the time merchants and everyone notice a loss of attendance/revenue and make a scene to change it will be too late.

Yep. Why not apply no-wake to cruisers-only? They’re floating condos, anyway. They’d actually be doing them a favor by giving them more time on them.

Pick a minimum Cruiser length of 25’ or 30’ for idling, place a few WP officers along the channel to help enforce (inform the public beforehand that WP will be approaching boats if they want them to slow down to idle-speed), and discretion of WP Officer is final. Like speeding on land, you won’t get 100% enforcement, but if it makes a big enough difference and response is favorable, might let the rest of the boats run on plane with mininal wake.

I emailed WP with that very suggestion. Much simpler for them to do like they did and set one rule for everyone, so a bit of humility may help us. Long shot for sure, but I’d rather try than whine/vent online.

Hey, I love running in the sh*t show as much as the next “offshore” knucklehead fan, but it’s a popular lake and we ain’t the only the fish in it. If we don’t compromise, rules like those in place are what happens.

then you get into what defines a cruiser?

Great example I registered my sailboat as a powerboat tosave a $3 bs fee a couple weeks ago. Told them it’s a powerboat with a big stripper pole 🤷*♀️

1. WP could brainstorm with a local marina or two to come up with examples for those “boat classification challenged”. List those online and boaters can inquire online between now and then about their own boat. Lots of time to do so. All inquiries will be posted on a list. Pretty simple, IMO. Remember that water patrol officers have final say on the water.

2. Go by a combination of length/displacement minimums.