Our shrinking rights and the fight in Oriental NC

[Sand Castle]

Valhalla - I'm buying you a beer. You've got it right in your response to Julie.

All the drama talk is when people take carefully edited snippets or tongue in cheek comments in letters to the editor and.,,

1. Blame it on Towndock.net or
2. Say it's racism, mob rule, or the apocalypse.

People are just p-ssed off that these boaters are over staying. And people should not make excuses for the boaters' lack of good judgment or personal courtesy and responsibility.

[Svdestiny]

I'm buying Delancy and Julie Mor and Mr Buck a beer

[boatman61]

Well its going to take a lot more than 10gals of diesel to get them out of the USA now they've the new starter... your talking 2000nm to the Azores which calls for gas/food and water (NC water is not potable) and no way will they head across till next summer so looks like Taylors Creek or points South may be posting on here in the future... unless they just get escorted to the national 'Limits' and refused re-entry..

[sailorchic34]

It seems that the liberals and conservatives here have been reenacting the current budget debates in congress. Though perhaps in a slightly more civilized form.

I think we all agree that the fixed anchorouts are taking the up water that would be nice to anchor in what is now a small anchorage.

Just enacting laws that say you can only anchor for 3 days or a week, will not solve the problem. That has been tried in other areas,Sausalito for one, and it does not work. The police come by say you have too move and the anchor outs just says no.

So you say, arrest the anchorout. Cool. But as Boatman said, the boat is still there. It oddly enough takes about $10-$20K to remove a boat and dispose of it, sometimes more, what with all the people and paperwork that has to be done. It isn't cheap.

That is the problem in a nut shell. The money for boat removal just is not in the budget.

Plus you then have yet another homeless person on the street.

So are there any constructive ideas to solve the problem??

[Julie Mor]

Originally Posted by Sand Castle

Valhalla - I'm buying you a beer. You've got it right in your response to Julie.

All the drama talk is when people take carefully edited snippets or tongue in cheek comments in letters to the editor and.,,

1. Blame it on Towndock.net or
2. Say it's racism, mob rule, or the apocalypse.

People are just p-ssed off that these boaters are over staying. And people should not make excuses for the boaters' lack of good judgment or personal courtesy and responsibility.

You're right.

1. You can't blame Town Dock just because they initiated the complaint and then continued to post about it on their blog.

2.
a) We all know racism is dead, as evidenced by the recent 5-4 SCOTUS decision that invalidates the heart of the Voting Rights Act. I'm glad we cured THAT problem!

b) And since mob rule is trying to take control of a situation by those outside the lawful realm, certainly posting to a blog and stirring up public sentiment against a few boaters can't be considered mob rule. After all, it's only a few boaters who have little voice and even less financial means with which to defend and support themselves.

c) As for the Apocalypse, you're on your own there.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Julie Mor

We all know racism is dead, as evidenced by the recent 5-4 SCOTUS decision that invalidates the heart of the Voting Rights Act. I'm glad we cured THAT problem!

Can't you guy's get anything right... there's no 'Racism' involved... just a bunch of Caucasians slinging mud at another Caucasian from the US and someone else that's French.. that's called Nationalism.
Any racist sentiments expressed on Town Dock would have been followed by 'Suh'... this is NC..

[Delancey]

Originally Posted by Svdestiny

I'm buying Delancy and Julie Mor and Mr Buck a beer

Thank you for your gracious offer.

It saddens me that so much of the focus this discussion is on the minutia when the big picture seems to be overlooked. Bigger is not always better and more development usually comes at the expense of the environment with implications far beyond the simple inconvenience of no longer having an anchorage available to those who would prefer anchor out.

Rather than buying me a beer, I hope you would consider instead making a contribution to any to any one of the multitudinous environmental advocacy groups which fight on behalf of the environment everyday in Washington, as well as on a State and Local level.

As an example American Rivers | Support American Rivers has been fighting to make a difference in the quality of the waters that flow into your bay/lake/sound for forty years and you as sailors have benefited directly from their efforts.

Without a healthy environment in which to enjoy our sailing, we might as well be standing in a cold shower tearing up boat units as the saying goes.

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by sailorchic34

It seems that the liberals and conservatives here have been reenacting the current budget debates in congress. Though perhaps in a slightly more civilized form.

I think we all agree that the fixed anchorouts are taking the up water that would be nice to anchor in what is now a small anchorage.

Just enacting laws that say you can only anchor for 3 days or a week, will not solve the problem. That has been tried in other areas,Sausalito for one, and it does not work. The police come by say you have too move and the anchor outs just says no.

So you say, arrest the anchorout. Cool. But as Boatman said, the boat is still there. It oddly enough takes about $10-$20K to remove a boat and dispose of it, sometimes more, what with all the people and paperwork that has to be done. It isn't cheap.

That is the problem in a nut shell. The money for boat removal just is not in the budget.

Plus you then have yet another homeless person on the street.

So are there any constructive ideas to solve the problem??

I guess the way we solve most of these problems is to charge the responsible boaters more in order to take care of the irresponsible ones.

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Can't you guy's get anything right... there's no 'Racism' involved... just a bunch of Caucasians slinging mud at another Caucasian from the US and someone else that's French.. that's called Nationalism.
Any racist sentiments expressed on Town Dock would have been followed by 'Suh'... this is NC..

Why is it that when people disagree they sometimes prefer to sling misapplied insults instead of arguing a point?

[Delancey]

CAMA Land Use Plan 2007 - Oriental, North Carolina*

"Overall, commercial shellfish quality in the area is poor. A survey by the NC Division of Water Quality indicates continuing deterioration of water quality for this region. Proliferation of small docks, commercial marinas and storm water runoff from development are sources associated with decline of water quality. But polluting elements from the Neuse River Basin continue to degrade our local waters."

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by letsgetsailing3

Why is it that when people disagree they sometimes prefer to sling misapplied insults instead of arguing a point?

Is that an agreement... or an accusation of being insulting...

[sailorchic34]

Originally Posted by letsgetsailing3

I guess the way we solve most of these problems is to charge the responsible boaters more in order to take care of the irresponsible ones.

Well that's a start. I assume by take care of the irresponsible ones you mean put them in jail and destroy the boat.

To put this in perspective: Sausalito has had about 100 boats anchored in the bay for about forever. They actually have been slowly removing the true abandoned boats after 30 days of being abandoned. Yet after doing this for 5-8 years or so, guess what. There are still about 100 boats anchored out. New anchorouts take the place of the old ones.

Where I'm anchored today, there are two long term anchor outs. Last few years in this location there wasn't any. Its a sign of the times. There are a whole lots of folks unemployed and homeless. Some of those folks own boats.

Others like the french people lost their pension and are now stuck. That's happening a lot too. Hard times for the down and out.

[Captain Bill]

I don't want to repost Julie Mor's comments again, but I would dispute her characterization of this issue.

1. I own no home other than my boat, characterizing the issue as owners with land homes versus owners without land homes is not accurate. I attempted to use the harbor and could not due to the way the boats were anchored in the harbor, not by the number of boats. I do not dispute the legality of their anchorage. IMO it is terribly rude to the rest of us with tall masts that don't have the option of going under the bridge, to hog the small sheltered anchorage when they have short masts and could easily use the area behind the bridge. It is also terribly rude to anchor in a manner that precludes efficient use of the available space, whether you are anchoring long or short term. When I am going to anchor for an extended period in one place I attempt to anchor in the least obtrusive place possible. I don't put myself in the center of the anchorage and start setting out multiple anchor lines fouling the anchorage for others. Since I am a cruiser, I consider an extended stay more than a couple of days.

2. I would characterize Towndock.net as a small town online newspaper rather than simply a blog. The owners of towndock seem to have written a short but factual article on the french boat which I did not read as positive or negative. They have published a lot of letters to the editors from citizens of Oriental and elsewhere with varying opinions on the presence of these boats in the harbor for a long period, including from the OP of this thread. I don't see that the owners of town dock have taken a position on this, but are simply reporting on the issue, including efforts of some persons in the town to enable the town to put in long term anchoring restrictions.

3. The Oriental habor Marina is not a for profit entity. It is a condominium association (dockuminium if you prefer) which if memory serves me correctly is prohibited from making a profit by NC law. I'm sure the original development was for profit, but the current owners, some of whom I know are simply boat owners and this is their home marina. If you look at the "pre" marina pictures posted earlier, you might note that the boats are largely anchored in the same area that they anchor today. I'm told, but don't have personal knowledge, that the area where the marina was built was very shallow and no one anchored there anyway. I did not boat in the area before the marina was built, but perhaps someone who did can confirm this or dispute it. Some owners apparently make their slips available to transients when they are not using them. My understanding is that virtually no one is making a bunch of money off of this. A few people manage to off set some of their costs such as tax payments, interest, and condominium dues.

Last but not least I would disagree with the OP's definition of courtesy. If someone has to ask you to be courteous then you are not.

[gwmort]

It seems to me in regards to the french couple, they should be fined for over staying their Visas, when they can't pay the fines the only asset (the boat) should be seized and sold at auction to pay the fine and costs of deportation. It appears the hull is valuable enough to merit the costs of removal. No new legislation should be necessary.

[captain58sailin]

Then what? Fly them back to France?