Living on two lakes allows some insight into this problem: By comparison, Winnipesaukee doesn't
have a problem.
At my Florida lake, one neighboring community of ten homes has a single dock in the middle of it. Everybody contributed equal shares 20 years ago to build a new one with room for ten boats -- one for each home.
Over the years -- and with pontoon boats becoming more popular -- the six most recent arrivals put in boat
houses having an average length of 30-feet each. Where there was once room for ten boats, there is now room for only six boats! (Plus, everybody's lake view was blocked by the boathouses).
A two-year drought then hit Florida -- Florida lake levels dropped -- and four of the six pontoon boats had no water below them in which to launch!
Dredging, which had severely downgraded the lake water quality before I got there -- was out of the question. The lake had receeded so far that there was a 130-foot beach in front of everybody's houses: Most homeowners had to mow their lawns down to the end of their docks!
Meanwhile, I was still sailing my 20-foot catamaran off of "my" 130-foot sandy beach.
Affected boat owners petitioned the County to raise the level of our lake by installing a dam -- which the State paid for. That stabilized the "launching problem" for the newbies, and allowed other boat launches at boat ramps -- whose bottom edges had eroded so badly that a laden trailer could not be pulled out over the concrete edge.
When I left last month, the lake was receeding and affecting the pontoon boats once again: Two could not launch into sufficient water. Lakefront realty agents were saying that, "a hurricane would restore the lake levels again".
What a thing to wish for!
This spring's similar Winnipesaukee scenario can affect all the larger, deep-draft, boats. Every time I hear "get a bigger boat", I think of my "dredged", "petitioned", and "dammed" Florida lake.
Against Mother Nature, resistance is futile.
