Jim, is your new boat in Milwaukee yet? I haven't been out to see if there's anything on that mooring. If she is here, did you sail down or motor? How's she handle? It's an unusual boat (at least the twin keels)and I'm sure everyone would like to hear about her.
Doug

Funny you should ask..... My new very old boat is in town. We left TRivers Saturday morning at about 11:30. We did get to sail for about 3 hours, tacked a few times, but the wind was crummy and coming from the south. After about 3 hours we were becalmed about 5 miles out. Seems to handle decent enough, not real great trying to get close to the wind. So it was time to crank up the old diesel and head south. We wound up motoring at abt 4 knots for the next 17 hours. Went slow to take it easy on the motor, since I don't know any history about it and what kind of shape it is really in. And I think it's top speed is about 6 knots anyway. Steady speed, steady course, with the tiller bungee corded amidships. Got into a fog filled South Shore at about 7 am. GPS worked to get us to the entrance to the mooring field but it was a little dicey trying to see where we actually were. Everything basically went well in my smelly old boat for the trip down, no storms, no big problems, no sinking. But I did manage to run it aground a little bit next to the public pier, next time I'll have to just tie up at the end of the pier. So it is sitting on the mooring, hopefully not bashing into any other boats or sinking .

The public pier @ SSYC? The damned thing is insanely shallow, LOL's

Jim-
Welcome to Southshore. You're concern about bashing other boats is well founded as yesterday it appeared that you and your neighbor to the west were bumping. Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but figured you'd want to know.

yes by the piers at SS it is stupid shallow, at the end of the pier it is just over 3 ft on a couple of them. I think there is some petition to put in longer public piers at SS and McKinley marinas, I saw something at West Marine about that.

Bumping my west neighbor, that is not a good thing. I'll have to check it out tomorrow after work. That area is rather tight with boats. Thanks for letting me know. I have my boat tied up as tight as possible to the mooring bouy. maybe I'll have to have the mooring moved a bit during the off season.

I'm moored at South Shore, but don't really know much about the set-up. Which peirs are public and which are SSYC?

The public piers are the 3 short ones just north of the boat launch. They look like like they are part of the boat launch. All the other piers are SSYC piers.

My understanding is the three low piers at the boat launch are public as well as the two permanent taller docks just north of them. I think all of the SSYC docks need to be accessed by first entering the club grounds. It seems if the two taller docks belonged to the club, they would be marked as such.

A whole new topic, but what is of bigger concern to me is the placement and moving of moorings. I have seen the SSYC North Atlantic Life Boat/work boat towing moorings around the anchorage. I'm not accusing them of doing anything wrong. I'm sure they are all gentlemen and wouldn't interfere with anyone's mooring. They have a charter for the land, but I doubt it includes control of the public waters. An earlier post mentioned that one person is responsible for the field and must have some relationship with the club. Yet, what are the rules for placing a mooring? We've talked before about how crowded the Milwaukee fields are getting. These are private property and must be registered with the harbor master (mine are!) My mooring had a 30 footer on it and I doubt that would work today. Jim's had a 22 footer on it but his 26 is having troubles. Was it moved? Did someone move in on him? Who do we contact to get answers to these questions?
Just thinking out loud here.
Doug

I would think the Harbor Master would want to know of mooring changes.

Are the ends of those public piers at least 4' deep? Next time I go out I will bring a long stick.

I believe that the mooring fields, because they are 'public waterways', are not regulated at all, other than the Coast Guard ensuring that vessals to not ingress into marked channels. I do believe this to be very true and, if so, then there's really not a damned thing you can do, even if some idiot drops a mooring 10' off your transom, like the asshole to my south. I just love the becalmed days, when his vessal and mine play 'bumpers' with each other. I also do not think the Harbor Master, for the same reason, has anything, or power, or control, though they might like to verbally bluff that they do. That being said, I'm sure they could if there were a proven or identified safety concern. But as for someone dropping a new mooring in to close to you? There is no legal recourse, far as I know of. Gene Cramer (has account on this site)is the President of the McKinley Mooring Association, and my guess is that he'd likely have the more accurate info than I do re this issue.

Just my .02 cents...