Anchoring Rights Diminish When a Boat Is Unattended

A Former Harbormaster’s View, as States Grapple With Derelict Vessels

Roger Long Jul 17   ∙   Guest post

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The topic is timely as states seek to enact time limits on anchoring. The author is a retired naval architect and regular Loose Cannon contributor. More importantly, in the context of this opinion piece, he once served as harbormaster at Cape Elizabeth, Maine, which is to say that he has real-world experience managing anchorages. Loose Cannon endorses Long’s point of view, informed by having myself once served on a small-town Massachusetts harbor commission.

The right of unimpeded vessel passage through navigable waters has been deeply embedded in common law since before the nation’s founding. The U.S. Supreme Court has confirmed the fairly obvious point that anchoring is an essential aspect of vessel operation and therefore subject to the same legal principles, and that it should only be restricted in the case of overriding public interest.

An example for navigation would be restriction of entering military practice zones; for anchoring, not obstructing navigation channels or disturbing especially valuable bottom habitat such as coral reefs. The bar for prohibiting or restricting anchoring is therefore a high one and rests on the foundation of freedom of navigation.

However, the many controversies, lawsuits, and legislative actions I have followed over the years mostly seem to overlook a vital point: Navigation is performed by people aboard vessels. The age of the self-navigating vessel may be coming, as it is on roads, and regulators and legislators will need to address it.

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But for now we are considering the issue in the present world and based on the common law that brought us to this point in time. A vessel anchored with people aboard is navigating; an unoccupied vessel at anchor is not. The unoccupied anchored vessel is therefor due a lower level of freedom from restriction and regulation.

The common law of anchoring developed in an age when it would have been exceedingly rare for a vessel to be left at anchor without a crew aboard. An anchor watch would be kept all night by rotating crew members to be sure the anchor did not begin to drag with weather or current changes. This practice is still maintained by many commercial vessels.

For the small crews on recreational vessels, the anchor watch has now been largely supplanted by GPS based anchor alarms but there is still the presence of a crew aboard that can quickly respond to an anchor failure or emergency. This is a significant issue in appropriate regulation of the use of anchors.

If a state chose to establish a prohibition against a vessel being left unoccupied while at anchor, I believe it could ultimately prevail in the courts based on the navigation principle. I doubt that the state would want to do this however. There would be huge push back from the boating community and it would be injurious to shoreside businesses in those places where people can anchor and go ashore to spend money.

In those situations however, the occupants of the vessel are near by and in a position to monitor the weather and return promptly to the vessel if necessary. Anchoring an unoccupied vessel and then leaving town overnight or for several days is a very different situation. I also believe that people who wish to live aboard long term in a harbor with jobs ashore can not be considered to be attending their vessel unless they have have a job that keeps them close to their vessel and an arrangement with their employer that lets them leave immediately and at will.

Even in that case, there will be the necessity for them occasionally to leave town. If they do not want to move their vessel to a dock or marina on those occasions, their vessel should be on a stout and permitted mooring. Another distinction that has usually failed to be made in the various anchoring controversies is that between anchors and mooring.

The phrase “anchored or moored” constantly appears but there are very important and relevant distinctions when regulations are contemplated. Vessel anchors are gear sized and arranged to be deployed, retrieved, and carried by a vessel. As such, compromises must be made in size, weight, and configuration. Moorings, on the other hand, are generally installed by vessels specifically intended for the purpose. They can thus be larger than a vessel on them would be able to retrieve.

Their anchor design does not need to be compromised by storage underway and can be less susceptible to breaking out and dragging with current and wind shifts. All of these anchoring questions are ultimately about individual use of a public resource which is the navigable waters.

Another important distinction between vessel anchors and mooring is that a vessel takes its gear with it and frees up that portion of the public resource when it leaves. A private mooring, as a (semi)permanent installation, continues restrict a portion of the resource even when the vessel is absent. Moorings should therefore be regulated and subject to approval with appropriate permits and fees.

A vessel which puts out its anchor and is then left for a long period of time is not really anchored nor is it navigating. By virtue of its occupying a portion of a public resource, it is actually a vessel on mooring but a mooring consisting of inadequate and substandard gear for the situation.

Any appropriate approval and permit issuing for moorings should consider the factors of vessel size, nature of the bottom, anchor type and weight, etc. to ensure that the vessel will remain in place through weather conditions that can be reasonably expected.

Any public process of discussing anchoring and mooring will generate many responses along the lines of, “A good anchor is better than an unknown mooring.” “Moorings can break too.” “I trust my gear more than something put down by someone I don’t know.” I agree. I would rather ride out a storm on my own anchor in a carefully selected spot than on a mooring.

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An anchor usually begins to drag slowly and gives enough warning that engines can be started and action taken. When a mooring fails, the boat will immediately be moving through the harbor at whatever speed the wind and current can generate. Contact with another vessel is highly likely.

However, I have tens of thousands of miles of experience and very good ground tackle. Public policy must be based on a much lower common denominator. Note also that I said, “Ride out.” I would be aboard to deal with emergencies and thus would be navigating with the greater regulatory protection of that status.

If I could not be aboard the vessel for a storm, I would want the vessel on a mooring that I believed was up to the job. Strictly speaking, I consider it poor seamanship to leave a vessel anchored unattended through a tide cycle since anchor drags usually occur after the reset when the direction of pull changes.

Few, even the anchoring activists, would consider it appropriate for someone to drive an RV into someplace like a national forest and just leave it with the license plates removed and expect to come back weeks or months later to use it. Why should it be different on the water?