Areas of Florida and the Caribbean commonly have mooring fields, but those on the U.S. East
Coast are disappearing.
Wrightsville Beach does not allow private mooring balls, although the Carolina Yacht Club has
maintained at least one or two in Banks Channel for decades. The Carolina Beach mooring field
offers nine white mooring balls with a blue stripe in the middle for $20 per night in Myrtle Grove
Sound for boat lengths between 26 to 55 feet, having no more than a 14-foot draft. It is located
south of Snows Cut, between markers #4 and #5 on the approach channel into the Carolina
Beach town waterfront.
A spokesperson for Charleston’s City Marina says all mooring balls in the Ashley River are
now privately owned. Beaufort,
North Carolina, once had mooring
balls inside the corporate town
limits but they were deemed
illegal and were removed, a town
hall representative says. Beaufort
limits anchoring in Taylor and
Town creeks to 10 cumulative days
anywhere inside the town’s cor-porate
limits. After that, boats are
fined, police Lt. D. Garner says. The
term limits are cumulative in any
location, not just consecutive. The
town has a police boat and keeps
track of what boats are where and
checks on them once or twice a
week. After day 10, officers zip-tie
a tag to the boat. Then, after going
through a process, the fines are
$500 per day.
“It’s pretty stiff,” Garner says. He
mentions derelict boats, nothing
but fiberglass hulls, saying “we’ve
had some issues.”
trending
MERELY LEAVING
IT UP TO PEOPLE
TO RESPECT THE
RIGHTS OF OTHERS
TO OPERATE IN
PUBLIC WATERS
WON’T WORK
GOING FORWARD
AS WELL AS IT DID
DECADES AGO.
20
WBM october 2019