anchor-outs have significantly harmed the ecosystem

[openwater]

Well said Sailorchick34! This particular study has a valid purpose, and i , for one, support it.

Our Richardson bay anchor outs need to be responsible for their vessels, their sewage, and other detritus. I swim in this bay, but now only on a fresh incoming tide.

[Montanan]

Originally Posted by fivecapes

How they address it in the Balearics

CBBAsea: Reserva de fondeos en las Islas Baleares



https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...22098103004428

The science article regarding most appropriate anchor type and practices to minimize damage to the seagrass uses the same term for such grass fields that my high school marine biology teacher would use, a meadow. Indeed seagrass coves and bays are just that - underwater meadows.

I posted a picture of the damage by an ATV to a creekside meadow in a previous post of this thread which damage is rather the equivalent to a dragging chain and anchor. There being types of anchors that are much less destabilizing to the undersea floor than others, some act exactly like land plows because that is the design of implement that the anchor manufacturer copied and applied to marine use, but I won't divert this thread into an anchor type debate.

The take away point being that we can minimize our impact on sealife and it isn't a hard or overly burdensome task, especially if technologies are adopted and practices are modified.

[rmesfo]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Humans damage the environment.
Does anyone think an anchor does as much damage as clearing the land and paving it over, constructing a house or Condo and applying chemicals to the yard to kill insects and make the grass look pretty, the run off from the roads with fuel and oil in it?
Marina I stayed in in Panama City Fl, every time it rained you would see the illegal fuel sheen on the water, except it wasn’t from any boat, it was run off from the parking lot.

Anytime you see these kinds of studies, seek the hidden agenda, cause I can assure you there is one.
Anytime any study is funded to find damage, I can assure you damage will be found.
Question that is usually never answered is just how much actual damage is done? How easily does it recover? And sometimes like a wreck for example the damage can actually be beneficial, but that’s not often studied.

I second that thought. There is an agenda lurking to prohibit, not fix.

[Evergreen]

Another ploy to try to take away the rights of boats.

[Don C L]

Well, it depends on who owns the land under the boat. If I park in a farmer's field, he or she might allow it if I don't cause too much damage. But then if I start doing donuts in his field I suspect many would say he is right to forbid any future parkers, no?

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Evergreen

Another ploy to try to take away the rights of boats.

I think it’s class warfare, boats are actually irrelevant in this discussion, I believe.
It’s the people in those boats that “they” want gone.

But it’s nothing new, zoning laws exist to filter the “class” of people that are allowed to live in a neighborhood. It been that way for a long time, funny thing is, it seems to be the worst in “enlightened” Urban areas.
Go to the country in Alabama for instance and you’ll find mobile homes right beside of the McMansions.
Always thought that funny, and I’ve always thought it to be due to lot size maybe?

[Beau.Vrolyk]

There are so many misstatements and outright inventions in the thread above I won't bother with many of them. But:

First, let's eliminate all the arguments that are basically: "What anchor-outs are doing is not as bad as _____." Where one fills in whatever terrible thing they can think of. That's just lame, folks. Of course, there are worse things. It is painfully obvious that this sort of fractured logic is just wrong. It's the "We suck less than those other guys." argument and it won't work on any clear-thinking person. Especially when those "other guys" are also being heavily regulated, which gets left out of the argument.

Second, while environmental damage is bad in some other place, and is tolerated, there is almost always a massive difference in scale. The first example of this from above was "Well how about paving over a parking lot." Again, our first error of mental operation occurs here. Because someone else sucks, you don't get to complain about people telling you not to suck just because you suck less. Further, on an amount of suckage (is that a word?) comparing a single boat, or even 100 anchored boats, to the social good provided by infrastructure like roads, parking lots, buildings, etc.... is fine. But only if the comparison is accurate. One person with 100' of chain and an anchor will cover a 200' diameter circle of destruction all by themselves. Consider trying that in a similarly densely populated area. What do think would happen. Of course, one can't see the damage to the sea bed or the poop floating down from these boats. As a result, it's easier not to care.

We have real-life examples of the land-based version of anchor-out cruisers right now in the SF Bay area, and many other parts of the country. They are folks who are living on the streets in RVs. Some are doing what the anchor-outs do: dumping their sewage into the storm drains or even the gutters. Many are dumping their trash on the side of the road. Society as a whole has pretty much decided that folks don't get to roll into town and behave this way in an RV. Why would they accept it from a boat? Doesn't that illustrate the point?

Well, there is a tradition. We sailors have been allowed to anchor all over the place, poop in the Bay, and toss our garbage overboard for a long time. It's only recently that pooping and polluting the Bay has been made outside the rules of normal good behavior. We sailors learn slowly and are an irascible lot. Those of us trying to live on the hook in Richardson's Bay are especially so. While I've no doubt they will argue their "right" to pollute and damage the bay, they are simply wrong about this; and society has actually codified just how wrong in laws. The current study about unseen damage to the sea bottom is just the next step in try to control the damage from these folks.

All of the other arguments, like look for an agenda, they are out to get us, big government, etc... It all boils down to:

If you want to let anchor-outs live in SF Bay and wreck the place, you better be willing to let a guy with an RV drive around on your local park making a circle of tire marks and dumping sewage as they go. It's precisely the same behavior.

The answer seems pretty clear to me, but everyone is entitled to an opinion. Opinions are a lot like bellybuttons. Everyone has one and most of them are entirely useless. I know mine is useless.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by Montanan

The take away point being that we can minimize our impact on sealife and it isn't a hard or overly burdensome task, especially if technologies are adopted and practices are modified.

Agreed. Assuming that minimizing human impacts is the end goal, as opposed to eliminating.

Originally Posted by rmesfo

There is an agenda lurking to prohibit, not fix.

And you don't even have to be a conspiracy-theorist to see it. Derelict boats, illegal sewage discharge, unsanitary/unsafe conditions at onshore facilities, other legitimate issues common to long-time popular anchorages -- all quite fixable if so desired. But those with personal agendas will use "environmental studies" as a pretext, and those with more sincere environmental concerns are often too gullible to understand what the real agenda actually is. Then these same people turn around and accuse those who are legitimately skeptical of being "anti-science" or "deniers" of scientific "studies." They don't seem to understand that it's the motives behind such studies themselves that are discrediting the science, and not others merely calling them out.

[Montanan]

Originally Posted by Don C L

Well, it depends on who owns the land under the boat. If I park in a farmer's field, he or she might allow it if I don't cause too much damage. But then if I start doing donuts in his field I suspect many would say he is right to forbid any future parkers, no?

Don, those donuts / doughnuts are called crop circles in farming country. Dang aliens leaving their scars on the fields.

It is a simple matter to install environmentally friendly moorings in the seagrass fields / meadows so as to minimize the crop circle formation, especially in heavily utilized areas.

As to the dumping of garbage, sewage and grey water regulating that inappropriate behavior requires alternative approaches.

Confiscation of the vessel being the easiest method. Once and done.

[Montanan]

[QUOTE=Exile;2896829]Agreed. Assuming that minimizing human impacts is the end goal, as opposed to eliminating.


Hmmm, Thanos, snapping of fingers comes to mind. But which half is eliminated, or would just half of a boat be eliminated, say, the aft end, or the fore end, or perhaps split down the center line.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by Beau.Vrolyk

* * *

We have real-life examples of the land-based version of anchor-out cruisers right now in the SF Bay area, and many other parts of the country. They are folks who are living on the streets in RVs. Some are doing what the anchor-outs do: dumping their sewage into the storm drains or even the gutters. Many are dumping their trash on the side of the road. Society as a whole has pretty much decided that folks don't get to roll into town and behave this way in an RV. Why would they accept it from a boat? Doesn't that illustrate the point?

Well, there is a tradition. We sailors have been allowed to anchor all over the place, poop in the Bay, and toss our garbage overboard for a long time. It's only recently that pooping and polluting the Bay has been made outside the rules of normal good behavior. We sailors learn slowly and are an irascible lot. Those of us trying to live on the hook in Richardson's Bay are especially so. While I've no doubt they will argue their "right" to pollute and damage the bay, they are simply wrong about this; and society has actually codified just how wrong in laws. The current study about unseen damage to the sea bottom is just the next step in try to control the damage from these folks.

All of the other arguments, like look for an agenda, they are out to get us, big government, etc... It all boils down to:

If you want to let anchor-outs live in SF Bay and wreck the place, you better be willing to let a guy with an RV drive around on your local park making a circle of tire marks and dumping sewage as they go. It's precisely the same behavior.

The answer seems pretty clear to me, but everyone is entitled to an opinion. Opinions are a lot like bellybuttons. Everyone has one and most of them are entirely useless. I know mine is useless.

I wouldn't say anyone's opinions are useless, but your attempt at analogizing between RV's and anchored boats seems like quite a stretch. Dumping sewage & garbage into protected waters has been illegal and subject to heavy fines for a long time. In challenging the seagrass study, I haven't heard anybody trying to defend such behavior. Quite the contrary. By contrast, dumping that same sewage/garbage on city streets has been resulting in well-documented incidences of serious illness and alarming diseases. News accounts blame it on unregulated homelessness not RV's, and certainly not anchored boats in Richardson Bay. While you may justifiably equate it as the same "behavior," the actual & potential negative "impacts" to the greater population are hardly equivalent. Both types of problems should be addressed, but they should also be properly prioritized.

[Exile]

[QUOTE=Montanan;2896838]

Originally Posted by Exile

Agreed. Assuming that minimizing human impacts is the end goal, as opposed to eliminating.


Hmmm, Thanos, snapping of fingers comes to mind. But which half is eliminated, or would just half of a boat be eliminated, say, the aft end, or the fore end, or perhaps split down the center line.

Are you suggesting that elimination of the anchorage is the only answer? Maybe I've misunderstood your posts.

[Montanan]

[QUOTE=Exile;2896850]

Originally Posted by Montanan

Are you suggesting that elimination of the anchorage is the only answer? Maybe I've misunderstood your posts.

As to avoiding unnecessary harm to the ecosystem in the especially heavily used region of the bay, I have suggested / recommended that environmentally friendly moorings be installed so as to preclude the use of vessel dropped anchor mooring and the use of ground tackle that comes into contact with the seabottom and which rode damages the seameadow. A bit of adept utilization of technology can go a long way to mitigating impacts.

So if by the term anchorage you mean the deployment of a temporary anchor to moor to the ground instead of a permanent moor then yes I would go so far as to eliminate such anchoring and provide a better alternative.

The societal issues [as to affordable housing alternatives] and pollution issues are distinct matters.

[Stu Jackson]

Here's an earlier discussion of the some of the issues in this thread, a mere 11 pages


http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...up-154061.html

[Arthurwg]

If you really want a pristine ecosystem you'll have to go to another planet. But there's no guarantee that it will sustain human life when you get there.