Lynnhaven Boat Ramp Report from Parks and Recreation Dept:

Sail 250: 

Ships will begin anchoring in the Lynnhaven anchorage beginning Tuesday June 16. 32 total ships from 15 different countries. 

Parade of Sail: Underway from Lynnhaven Anchorage at 0735 hours on Friday June 19. 

The Lynnhaven Boat Ramp area has been identified as a Casualty Collection Point (CCP) should a mass casualty event occur on one of the ships or at the anchorage. Other than this it will be normal operations. 

The boat ramp will be fully staffed for the Sail 250 weekend with anticipation of large crowds for the parade of sails and normal boaters and beachgoers. We also expect larger weeknight crowds with people trying to see the ships from the beach. 

June 5-7: “This was an extremely busy weekend with a total of 480 launches. 

Friday, June 5 – 165 total launches, car parking did fill around 1pm with sporadic availability throughout the remainder of the afternoon. The overflow lot was used for 4-5 vehicles. We did not have to close using the barricades at any time. 

Saturday, June 6 – 189 total launches, car parking did fill up around 11am and was full most of day. The overflow lot was used for approximately 50 vehicles with trailers. We did close the facility to trucks and trailers around 10:30am using the barricades. We also changed the new electronic signs to full and notified the VBPD that the ramp was closed to trucks and trailers. This was a very busy day as we had to turn away about 40-50 boaters due to our trailer parking being full. In addition to the number of trailers turned away, most of the boaters that came early to launch remained on the water until late afternoon, so we had very little turnover throughout the day. 

Sunday, June7 – 132 total launches, car parking did fill up around 10am and there was limited available parking throughout the day. The overflow lot was used for larger oversized trailers on this day. We did have to close the facility around 1030am-415pm, and barricade operations were implemented. Police were notified that our facility parking was full and patrolled the area throughout the day. 

Incidents to report: 

Other than increased attendance at the facility during the evening hours each night review of the camera footage from the weekend showed nothing except people utilizing the beach as intended. Security had no additional reports of issues during their scheduled times. On Monday, June 8 at approximately 9:41pm, I did get an update from security that the Real Time Crime Center alerted VBPD of some high school students gathering on the beach. Security reported that VBPD came onsite but no found no major issues or violations. 

Notes: 

1. The new digital signs were implemented this weekend. Although we had to turn away a lot of boaters the staff felt that the signs were very beneficial. Our hope being that people will do better about not turning off Shore Drive when they see we our full. This will take time. 

2. We have noticed an influx of larger boats coming to the facility due to the perceived issues at the Owl Creek boat ramp. With this there have been many new citizens launching and recovering that are not used to our procedures. During the weekend of June 6-7, we had several incidents of verbal abuse towards staff, citizens not abiding by established procedures when launching and recovering their boats, and uncooperative drivers trying to circumvent our barricade operations for road closure. Even with a full complement of staff, users are not being compliant to what staff are communicating. 

Parking Enforcement: 

Total Citation Count: 42  Total Read Count: 416 (this is the number of vehicles scanned during enforcement visits) “