Marina Dock Age, January/February 2000

No Room at the Dock?
Facts are critical to assessing facilities needs
by Ron Stone

It appears there is a chronic shortage of recreational boating facilities in many parts of the country. How much is fact and how much is illusion is hard to say.  

During the boating season, it is not uncommon to find trailer boaters waiting for hours to launch at the local boat ramp. Yet, that same facility may only be lightly used during the workweek. Similarly, boats may lie idle in their slips for much of the time, belying the fact that waiting lists for space are on the rise again.

A recent study by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on why more people don’t take up fishing and boating discovered a widespread perception that there are not enough facilities to enjoy these activities. However, the study also found that there is not nearly enough information to assure the public that there are.

What is known from the latest Coast Guard statistics is, currently there are at least 12.6 million registered watercraft throughout the country, not to mention hundreds of thousands of documented pleasure yachts. What is relatively unknown is how many boat ramps and marinas there are to accommodate them.

The National Marine Manufacturers Association, which maintains a nationwide inventory of marinas, can identify approximately 12,000 marinas with 901,337 wet slips and moorings, and name the body of water on which they are located. The States Organization for Boating Access, which maintains a national site specific database for federally assisted public boat ramps built, improved and maintained with Wallop-Breaux money, is able to identify more than 25,000 access sites. These two sources provide the greatest body of recreational boating facilities information.

In addition, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal agencies publish pamphlets describing public recreation opportunities on their lakes. Typically, this literature indicates whether a specific body of water offers public boat access, but is not precise about the land routes to the access points and the amenities. Similarly, the navigation charts available from NOAA do a fine job of directing cruising yachts to marinas, but they make no attempt to quantify how many facilities there are along any given waterway nor what kind of services they offer. Boaters can purchase commercial waterway guides, but they are geographically limited to coastal, Great Lakes, and major inland waterway networks. They do not give a true sense of how many marinas or boat ramps there are relative to the total number of boats in operation across the United States. Continue »