How Many People Are Waiting For a Mooring in Marblehead?

In 1960, my dad went to see the Marblehead Harbormaster to request to have a mooring. He was joining the Corinthian Yacht Club. Next thing you knew, my dad had arranged to have a new mooring installed for our sailboat. At that time, there was all kinds of mooring spaces available. This was especially true at the mouth end of the harbor, which is where the club was and is located.

The harbor had lots of boats, but by far, it had more sailboats than power boats. I don’t have the data to back that up, but my memory seems to recall that to be the case. Sadly to say, currently moorings are nearly impossible to obtain. The additional sad thing is the harbor seems to be filled with center console power boats that are between 20-30 feet long. I have often thought about taking my camera to take some photographs every weekend to capture if many of the boats actually leave the moorings. It would validate many boats are basically there to hang on to the moorings.

The above graph indicates on average, you will find 1,850 people on the waiting list to obtain a mooring. The low was 1,700 people in 2015 and high of 2,183 in 2022. This data was sourced from the Marblehead Annual Reports from 2013-2022. The reports also indicate the waitlist is running about 20 years.

There is constant discussions about the decrease in the number of sailboats racing. Not having access to a mooring is one of the major root causes. The spirit and personality of the Town of Marblehead and the five yacht clubs has been based on sailing and sailboat racing. Sailing will continue to decrease unless some people that have moorings are willing to give them up.

At Generating Media, we would like encourage those people that are hoarding the moorings to have “bragging rights” about having a mooring would consider giving them up so others would be allowed to make better use of them.