A bill that sets limits on wakesurfing and requires the state and boat dealers to educate recreationists sailed through the Legislature this week and is on its way to the governor to sign it into law.
The bill, LD2284/HP 1472 An Act to Implement Recommendations in the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s Report on Wake Boats, defines “wakesurfing activity” as essentially using a surfboard, wakeboard or similar device in a boat’s wake, which is the wave action the motorboat creates.
Certain watercraft, referred to as “wake boats,” are designed to sit low in the water and create larger than normal waves for water sports. Motorboats travel 9-11 mph to create wakesurfing waves, and 20-23 mph for wakeboarding, in which a person grasps a tow rope attached to the watercraft, according to a stakeholders’ study submitted to the Joint Standing Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in January. Wakesurfers are not tethered to the boat.
Although wakeboarding has been around for a while, wakesurfing is a relatively new sport in Maine, and its increasing popularity on the state’s waterways has raised concerns about shoreline wildlife, especially nesting loons, and erosion of shore property.
“It was a complicated bill and it was a long process to get it down to wakesurfing only, which is where it needed to be,” said Rep. H. Scott Landry Jr., D-Farmington, who introduced the bill in the current session of the Legislature and is the chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Inland Fisheries and wildlife.
The bill was voted unanimously out of committee, he said.
The new legislation requires watercraft dealers to provide customers information on safety, including a course requirement for boat operators born after 1999 that went into effect this year.
It also stipulates that motorboats serving a wakesurfer or surfboarder stay in water 15 feet or deeper and go no closer to shore than 300 feet. Violators can be fined no more than $100, according to the bill.
The state already has laws in place requiring prudent speeds within 200 feet of shore for all boats.
The new bill requires the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to formulate an education plan for wake boaters and wakesurfers, and to submit a report about the watersport to the Joint Standing Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife no later than Feb. 1, 2027.
The cost of the new regulations is expected to be minimal and can be absorbed in the MDIF&W’s current budget, according to the fiscal note attached to the bill.
The potential new law came about after Gov. Janet Mills signed a resolve in June 2023 directing the MDIF&W to establish a study group that would look at wake boats and their effects on shorelines.
The group was charged with defining wake boat and what watercraft are used for that purpose, water depth, distance from shore and how to enforce laws established, including fines.
The group’s members were drawn from the Joint Standing Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, the Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Advisory Council, the Department of Environmental Protection, Maine Audubon, the Lakes Environmental Association, Maine youth camps, Maine Marine Trades Association, Maine lake associations and the water sports industry.
The stakeholders group had a deadline of Feb. 1, 2024, to report its findings to the Joint Standing Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, and it was thought legislation could result. The group, which focused its recommendations on wake surfing, submitted its findings in a report dated Jan. 24.
The wakesurfing bill was not emergency legislation, so will go into effect 90 days after the Legislature adjourns.
