Name:   slowtimer - Subject:   Wake Boats Date:   8/13/2018 6:28:46 PM

I know that I am new here on the forum but please hear me out.  I agree with HPHQ except for the banning of wake boats.  We have been coming to the lake since the 1980's and have been to the lake pretty much every weekend every summer since then.  The speedboats never caused any real wakes and were never a real problem like the wake boats are now.  They just annoyed a couple of very powerful people.  I have an old pontoon boat (same boat I had back when there were suposedly large speedboats tearing up the lake) and never had any issues anywhere on the lake with extremely large waves.  That has since changed with the large number of wake boats.  We have to repair our dock every year due to the stresses of the large wakes.  This was not the case a decade ago.                                         

Even though I am presonally affected negatively by the wake boats I do not agree to ban them.  Please do some research on how the speedboat ban came into affect and how it is a state law that only affects 3 lakes.  How is that possible?  There are many more than 3 lakes in Alabama but somehow only 3 were included in the state law.  That sounds very fishy to me.  If we start banning stuff that we don't like then the laws become a "whack a mole" scenario and eventually our individual freedoms are taken away one by one.  One day we will wake up and not be able to do or own what we want.  Actually, we are past that point but that is a conversation for a different time.  You don't see laws being removed from the books very often and I fear that would be the case here.   Wake surfing is a fad that will eventually go away along with the wake boats.  If we ban them then the people will move to something else that will annoy people.  Jet Skis maybe???  Fishing boats next, then sea planes, then submarines, then pontoon boats, then canoe's and kayaks.  If you ban each fad then eventually nobody will be able to enjoy the lake.  Let's remove the speedboat ban get some of our freedoms back.