Sharing the Lake With Wakeboaters

At the gateway to a national forest, you’ll usually be greeted by the classic brown-and-yellow sign proclaiming the slogan “Land of Many Uses.” I’m beginning to think that we need a similar sign at our launch ramps. Something like “Lake of Many Uses.”

The head honcho at a national forest has to manage the competing interests of grazing and timber and mineral extractors with those of hunters, hikers, cyclists, equestrians, rock climbers, skiers and snowmobilers. On a busy summer weekend, your lake or coastline might host anglers, cruisers, poker runners, sand bar and cove dwellers, divers, and wakesports enthusiasts on a variety of craft, from stand-up paddleboards to go-fast powerboats. In each case—the forest and the lake—there is the potential for conflict among these many users. For example, the Swanson kid recently dropped in at the Lake View Inn with this story.

“The other day, we were trolling on Big Green, and a wakeboarder came so near my boat that he actually had to jump over my planer board. That’s getting way too close. Everyone on the lake is out to have fun, but you gotta be safe.”

And there was the kerfuffle in March over in Waupaca County, where a town board, at the request of lakefront-property owners, passed an ordinance to prohibit wake-enhanced boating on two lakes. According to one source, 17 other towns in Wisconsin have also restricted or prohibited wake-enhanced boating. Late last year, a bill was introduced in the state legislature that would prohibit the operation of a “motorboat causing a hazardous wake” on a lake smaller than 1,500 acres, with use limits on larger lakes. That bill did not get a hearing, but in Vermont, a new law restricts wakesports to defined zones and identifies 30 inland lakes and ponds eligible for wakesports. Clearly a backlash is building.

Opponents of wake-enhanced boating—specifically wakesurfing—usually stand behind science, citing legitimate environmental concerns regarding shore erosion, the churning of lake sediments by prop wash, and the transport of invasive species in ballast water.

“Everyone knows that the science is an excuse,” opined my good friend Chuck Larson at the Lake View. “This is really about annoying rich people. A gaggle of kids with a booming stereo in a boat that costs more than my house, throwing a wake large enough to wash over my dock, is nothing more than a big middle finger. Send in the lawyers and lobbyists.” What Chuck means is there’s science, and then there’s social science.

“The day a state senator’s granddaughter gets tossed off her paddleboard by a surf wake is the day they ban wakeboating,” bartender Wally said. 

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There’s science, and then there’s political science.

If you’ve been around the water for a while, this might seem familiar. Twenty-five years ago, the anti-PWC crowd waved the environmental flag, but it was really two-stroke noise and annoying behavior that fueled conflict, and rightly so. Ultimately it was education, a peer pressure campaign, and quiet four-stroke power that settled down PWC discord.

The consensus at the Lake View Inn is that wakesurfers are not malicious. A few can just be oblivious. If you like wakesports, stay in the middle of big lakes, turn down the audio, steer clear of anglers and rafted-up boats—in other words, stop flipping off other boaters. And we should all take a tip from those 1990s PWC riders and let fellow enthusiasts know when they are out of line.

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