Saturday Boating on Winnipesaukee
 

So this past Saturday I broke my multi-year rule about not boating on Winnipesaukee on Saturdays and though it quickly reminded my why I dont boat on Saturdays, I did manage to survive it by being off the water by noon ;-)

One interesting observation is that a lot of the pontoon boats are rentals! Saw several being checked out at the marinas on the bay side of the Weirs bridge.

One poor guy knew so little about the boat he was renting that he started the outboard while the engine was tilted all the way up... That was a bit troubling. I believe the young person checking him out had tilled the motor to shown them the prop clean/undamaged, and had not yet instructed them to tilt it down before the renter started it. Fortunately the marina staff was right there and had them tilt it down quickly.

It was very clear most of the renters had little experience in boats, and several of the younger ones were eager to just get on the throttle hard.

Its a challenging situation, as many visitors to the area want to get out on the lake and some want to experience operating a boat to see if its for them. The problem is Winnipesaukee is so busy on a Saturday its not the best day to be a first time boater. I think more marinas should offer drivers at a modest cost or in combination with a reduced boat rental cost. Maybe then let the renter do some test driving where its reasonable to do so, but ensuring everyone is safe and having the best time they can have on the water. Well its just a thought,,,

I will now revert back to no boating on Saturdays, just better to be out of the way and not contributing to the madness.

Sunday stinks too...
 

...Went up to Black Cat and Blackey Cove yesterday. As we turned to head up between Bear Island and Cattle Landing area, there were 3 turquoise/black jet skis doing donuts and jumping wakes of all the boats that go through that passage. That is a busy, fairly narrow area and they were creating total chaos that was borderline dangerous.

Repeat after me: just a couple more weeks and it'll slow down...just a couple more weeks and it'll slow down....

;-) I'm with you!

And sadly the time will pass too quickly,,,

I agree, the jet skiers have gotten crazy this year!!!!

My jet ski is turquoise and black but I was not among the hellions! I’d be too worried about getting bucked off if I were to try to jump a wake.


Sent from my iPhone using Winnipesaukee Forum mobile app

Many marinas have Captain's available for renters who can't pass the test or people who just want the comfort level of having someone experienced aboard. Those Captains have the NH Commercial license that is required to operate any watercraft while being paid.

The backup option is to rent the person a 25 HP boat where no license is needed. In my opinion that is not any less dangerous. A 25 HP pontoon boat can cut you off, fail to yield, or run aground as easily as a 200 HP rental.

The worst place on the lake to start new inexperienced boaters out is the Weirs Channel. The expansion of North Water Marine (Thurston's) has increased the hazards that are faced going through the Channel. Quite often you can see new boaters attempting to enter the flow of boats. That is not a great situation.

Wasn’t me. I don’t have a turquoise/black jet ski. It’s black/turquoise.

Seriously, my observation of weekend traffic this season is that there has been noticeably less of it when comparing to the last two years. Gas prices? People getting over the peak of the Covid scare when so many introduced themselves to boating? I was out 11 - 2:00 Saturday and wasn’t overwhelmed at all - again - in comparison to the past few years. I have no opinion whether there are more or fewer crazies however and when I do see them, I give them a wide berth.

I am 100% in agreement!

My pet peeve,,,, you do NOT have to stand outside the rails on the pontoon to come in to tie up!!! Especially bad when you only just passed the outer channel marker!

Saw a few rental toons barreling into the channel and someone jumping out on the front deck with rope in hand... Last one had about 12 guys in it and I actually yelled to them that it was 'very dangerous and very illegal!' they just laughed and glazed over. :rolleye2:

Too many of the renters dont care about any rules until the marine patrol catch up with them.

Thankfully they seem to enjoy some form of dumb luck that helps them mostly avoid disaster.

I agree. It's been slower this year even with the great weather.

I'll also say that even the past two years were mostly fine by me. Even on the busiest of Saturdays, I can always find quiet areas on the lake to swim and tube. If I want to do the sandbar or town docks thing, I just make sure I start early.

I get it that midweek the lake is sublime, but I also think people overstate how bad it is in the weekends. Compared to other major boating lakes around the country, Winnipesaukee is very mellow.

I try to stay off the lake on Saturday’s as I think it’s the busiest and craziest day. I also agree the lake has been less busy than the previous two seasons.

Last Sunday at 12:30 I went to Alton Bay for a fix at pop’s and waited 5 minutes for a slip and while the kids were getting the food there was never more than two boats waiting and by the time we left at 1:30 there were 3 open slips.


Sent from my iPhone using Winnipesaukee Forum mobile app

Too hot for boating?
1. Swim
2. Pop a frosty
3 sit in the shade
Rinse, repeat.

Yup, seen too many days that were way to hot to be baking in the sun this summer. this has been like Florida heat. The 80s is more than enough for me, 95+ is sit in the air conditioned house and wait until night time to go outside weather,,,

This summer has definitely been more sitting in the shade than on the boat. I think, coincidentally, it was ok given the gas prices.

We've only put about 15 hours on the boat and, maybe, 10 on the skis.

Sent from my SM-G990U1 using Tapatalk

Great one this past Saturday...
 

Paugus Bay, near Pickeral Cove....

Tritoon, captain towing two ladies with no spotter..

But it gets better,,,, he steps away from the con moves toward the rear, and begins to video record them on his phone for a few minutes while never looking forward...

:eek:

/facepalm

WOW, you really cant make something like that up,,,

Saturday Boating on Winnipesaukee
 

Guessing you have never see the renters of pontoon boats here on Winnisquam sitting down on the bow with their legs dragging in the water.


Sent from my iPhone using Winnipesaukee Forum mobile app

Parked or while running at speed?

Running speed! We see it all season. You know they are rental boats by the number Winnisquam Marina puts on each rental boat


Sent from my iPhone using Winnipesaukee Forum mobile app

God help us all,,,

Saw this on Sunday, 8-28, between Little Barndoor and the entrance to Alton Bay. Someone sitting on the bow with feet kicking in the waves....

I'm beginning to think all remaining scraps of common sense have been drained from our society, and there can be no hope for a normal future.

Two days later I still can't get over this one.......
Saturday we were anchored 100' off a really small sandy beach, no houses around. My grandkids ages 2, 6 & 9, and their father were wading in the shallow water. In comes a pontoon boat heading stright for the beach. As they get close, they ask the kids to move so they can tie up to a tree. Sure enough, in they go, beach the pontoon, tie to a tree and sit on top of the beach for the rest of the day. Real classy.

Was it private property?

If not then then they may be from somewhere else that allows beaching of boats. So far as I know its a very common practice in other areas and mostly not practiced here as all the land is owned.

I would assume the land was private property, but I doubt they owned it, and they certainly did not own the sand under the water. If they had said this is our property and we need to dock our boat, different story. That wasn't the case. I have no problem sharing a nice spot, but they came in and took it entirely over for their own enjoyment with no regards for others. Seems a bit selfish.

I found that by 1pm on Sundays this year the lake is pretty dead. In past years it usually slowed down around 4pm on Sundays. This year, it gets dead a lot earlier. Makes no sense to me, but I'm not complaining, means I get a little extra time not having to dodge stupid people and get to enjoy a nice relaxing cruise.

Saturday boating.
 

While I agree that boating on Winnie on the weekends is just plain crazy... It's a combination of total shoreland development, amenities (restaurants, sandbars etc) that draws all the traffic.

Moderately busy lakes like Winnisquam, Ossipee, Wenworth are just as beautiful as Winnie, but offers none of the restaurant, tourist destinations that people crave.

If you'd like a totally relaxing, non-captain bonehead day (or at least a rare sighting!) even on a Saturday in prime summer Saturdays.... head to Conway Lake. I was there on Saturday 8/20 for a small bass club fishing tournament. Weather was absolutely perfect... 85 and sunny and calm. The lake was absolutely quiet. Looking down the 3-4 mile (?) length of the lake if you could see 8-9 boats or PWCs I'd be surprised.

Saturdays can be relaxing if one would consider their options...

Cheers...

Gusman

That sounds nice but it would be something only a small amount of people (I think less than 5% of boaters) could or would do.

The vast majority of Winnipesaukee boaters have no means to transport their boats. All of their boat movement and off season storage is handled by local marinas and service companies. Many boats are too large for an owner to transport anyway and hiring people involves another expense.

A lot of people on the lake have become used to the increase in weekend boat traffic and plan around it. The people fortunate enough to be at the lake all summer (or all year) have weekdays available to go to their favorite destinations.

This week and next week are two of the best weeks of the boating season. The lake is quiet and the water is still warm.

We went to Meredith for dinner at 6:30 last night. There was no wait and there were about 5 slips available. The lake was like glass. Great ride! (There are a few advantages to being old!)

It would be interesting to know how many boats are kept at slips-marina or privately rented, how many just put in for a day and how many are actually owned by people that live on the lake.

So true. After Labor Day is a holiday around these parts


Sent from my iPhone using Winnipesaukee Forum mobile app

Funny boat story
 

Last month, my wife and I were docked at the Center Harbor town docks. Slightly windy day. Brand new Monterey (25 feet or so) is trying to pull in to the docks that are in front of the town beach (facing the Center Harbor Inn). Older captain tries two times and can't quite get in, so I go over to the dock to help him. He gets close to the dock, and a younger guy in the bow hands me the dock line - but it's not attached to a cleat on the boat! It's just a loose dock line!

So I attached it to the cleat and pulled him in.

Funny and fortunately not too dangerous, situation. At least I had a good laugh.

I always wonder this as well. In my 50+ years on the lake as an "islander", I have seen a big increase in the number of boats, esp. on a weekend. There are far more day users than there were in the past.

This is not a complaint and everyone has an equal right to use the lake - it's just an observation.

Being a full time islander, I do agree that there are more boaters / boats now on the big lake. From 10:00 AM Saturday morning until 3:00 PM Sunday it can get crazy. After 4:00 PM Sunday and all during the week its absolutely beautiful and quiet however!

We don't usually bother trying to go for lunch by boat on a Saturday or Sunday unless we leave early and arrive at a town dock no later than 11:30 AM to ensure we get dock space.

The best part of the boating season starts in a week from today!!

See you out there!

Dan

Thats almost too sad to be believable,,,

Its truly amazing that we dont see serious accidents every day with that kind of mistake as our new standard of boating preparation.

Some days it is frightening.

Not too long ago I heard from MP that there are about 100,000 boats registered in NH and about 40,000 of those are primarily used on Winnipesaukee. There are more unregistered boats now, e.g. kayaks, and in our affluent society many shorefront families own several boats. Not all are used at the same time, of course. To me, the biggest changes over the years have been the introduction of bigger outboard motors (remember when 35hp was "big"?) leading to bigger boats with bigger wakes, and forklift trucks for boat storage. A 26 foot 13000 pound boat can go on the rack, but that's a lot of boat to pull behind the family sedan. So, a marina that used to have a couple dozen slips now can have 150 boats in valet.

Agree with you! However, I think the weekend warriors arrive on Friday around 3 pm and leave around 7 pm Sunday. Observed on the Walmart side of the lake!

?

I do remember when 35 HP was big!! I wonder if they have actually ever tried to see how many are slips and how many are by landowners. ??

I have been staying off the lake on Saturdays and get on about 1 on Sunday and by 3pm traffic is very light, ast sunday I got a spot in Wolfboro at 3:30 immediately and sat right away at Marker 21

On the Broads this year I will disagree. It gets pretty quiet around 1pm on Sundays, so about 11am to 1pm you get a little bit of a crowd, but after that it is pretty quiet all summer long on Sundays.
Saturdays have been busy except this past Saturday we all were saying how little traffic on the Broads there was.

My first boat (17 foot, Crosby fish and ski) had a 60 horse power outboard. Was in late 1950-early 1960's. Sweet boat, I do not remember the year it was built. Bought it from someone buying a much larger boat.

______________________________

I am a retired workaholic and continuing aquaholic

Was there such a concept as fish and ski in the 50's/60's???

I recall we had mostly Glastrons and Starcrafts in the 60's and mostly well under 50HP, but with the infamous cable and pulley steering and clouds of 2 cycle oil smoke!

Oops I did it again,,,
 

Well did it again,,,

We were at the Gunstock Craft Fair on Saturday and it was a bit smaller than expected and we had more of the afternoon left than expected, so we broke out the boat thinking maybe people might be doing other things like packing up their summer homes and such. Oh boy were we wrong!

Just as soon as I hit the Paugas sandbar the madness began, and it never got better.

It was possibly the worst day I have even seen on the lake for ignoring safety rules.

So many people totally ignoring distance/speed rules, cutting people off, it was a total free for all in front of Weirs Beach. And the line to get under the bridge only to see people get to the other side and turn around. It was the oddest day on the water I can remember.

It was very clear when you had a group of people in a rental boat who didnt know the basic rules and were kind of just winging it. But what was seemingly worse, was the guys with silver hair that seemed to just be arrogantly blowing off any rules as if they could care less. As one of the now older boaters on the lake this surprised me. I was really shocked by the utterly blatant disregard for basic safe boating rules by guys with nice boats that clearly were not rentals. Pretty much a get out of my way I dont care attitude. I have encountered this when waiting for dock space at various town docks, but never this bad.

So now I guess I need to be on the lookout for the gray foxes, as well as the newbies, and the distracted drivers playing with their cell phones, and the kids showing off, and rogue waves from the wake boats, and so on,,,

Well it was a really good reminder why I have come to like boating during the middle of the week.

I'll go out any hour of any day, but will adjust my expectations and behaviors accordingly.

In fact, I've used the lake a lot this year to teach my kids the ol' "you can't control what happens, but you can control how you respond."

Of course, things'll ramp right down these next weeks...

Sent from my SM-G990U1 using Tapatalk

Well you will certainly be a better boater if you learn to survive a Saturday Summer outing on Winnipesaukee ;-)

Paugus Bay
 

We went to the Paugus Bay (Margate) sand bar at 11:00 am. It was already very crowded! My son's dogs love it there so we had fun swimming and playing around. When we left at 1:30 pm, the sand bar was nearly fully crowded. So much so we pushed our boat out to open water.

The lesson learned over the past couple of years is that everyone needs to slow down a bit and be a little more deferential. Not a very profound take. The lake is so busy that just because you have the right of way doesn't mean you can take it. I am far less aggressive than I used to be. It also wouldn't hurt if the boaters who are towing their kids on rafts were a little more aware of their surroundings. (By far the most incidents I have is with boaters who are trying to throw their kids off the rafts.)

Saturdays are manageable, it just takes some patience.

Should have come to the Broads, pretty quiet day for such a nice day. On Sunday around 1pm cruised across from my friend's next to the Hole-in-the-Wall across the Broads and was shocked to only have to change my course because I came near a boat once. And that was a stretch of me being extra room kind. The last 2 weekends everyone around my camp were talking about how quiet it was out there.

Weirs always seems to attract the "I need to get no where fast" crowd. Can't tell you how many times I was pushed around by wakes going through the small no wake area at the point of Governor's Island because people were passing me this summer. Didn't seem to make a difference what day, just more so on weekends definitely.

Is this what the broads looks like on Saturday.??

Can you imagine trying to navigate through that,,,

Do every 4th of July... except it's at night. :D:laugh: Wouldn't feel safe with less than 3 sets of eyeballs on board!

2022 Awesome Quiet Summer
 

What's with all the sad Saturday stories and the pontoon renters aren't as cool as we are posts ? Visitors have always been the most important component of the Lakes Region economy and hopefully always will be... just imagine the alternative. Try not to over play the grumpy old men persona.

The Lakes Region economy was based on farms and mills.

Even though the LR is second ranked in tourism after the seacoast... the total value of tourism in NH is only valued at around $6 billion.

The $6 billion has been pretty steady for a couple decades, but the underlying activities have been changing.

The big surge in economic activity in the LR has been building... lots of it second homes. Which is why Laconia has nearly the same population as it did in the 1980 census, but has a housing shortage even after all the building.

We saw a huge surge with Covid and remote work.

But a second home owner is not renting a room, and may not eat as many meals out, as a tourist here for just a week or two; and that is how they determine ''tourism''.

Welcome to the Forum.
Actually, "I won't boat on Saturdays" is just a brag that some people have that as an option, where others have to work on weekdays. And, for some. it's not "when" you boat, but "where" you boat. If you live in Paugus Bay, the Channel and Weirs Bay are a fact of life.

Calm Down
 

Mills and farms ? Good point, renting a room and hitchhiking sound viable in 2022. You're neglecting the stone arrowheads and Neanderthal elephant blood based cave wall paint.
Second homes aren't visitors ? You claim $6,000,000,000.00 is worthless ? Ok. Peace.

No idea whats going on with this thread talking about mills and farms and tourism money,,,

As for safe boating on Saturdays on Winnipesaukee, well looking at this picture (below) I guess we are doing a bit better than other places.

That said, it is interesting to see just how different the boating rules are from place to place that in one place you can have something like whats going on in this picture, and then have somewhere Winnipesaukee where you literally cannot hang your ankle over the side of the boat without getting a ticket (happened to me!)

And forget about beaching a boat at Winnipesaukee, that is possible more horrifying than keelhauling, and yet across America, boaters safely enjoy beaching their boats without incident or even raised eyebrows.

As I have said countless times we are an interesting county of contradictions.

https://scontent-bos5-1.xx.fbcdn.net...Ig&oe=6325341C

They aren't considered ''tourists'' under second home ownership as the measure for tourism declines.