Boat Wake Erosion Is Expensive. It washes away thousands of dollars worth of land. It buries and kills fish eggs, plants, and invertebrates and disturbs waterfowl nests. Dredging downstream docks & channels also costs money. If you stand on shore when a speedboat goes by, you can see sediment lifted away by each wake.

Wakes erode 8 Square Feet per Gallon of Gas, or 50 Square Feet per Hour

Erosion per Hour. Each speedboat trip peels a few thousandths of an inch off  shorelines. This is a lot of land, because boats travel and erode for several miles each hour. Some boats go straight; some go back and forth, eroding the same spot. Either way, boating for an hour at 20 mph erodes 20 miles times 3 thousandths of an inch times two sides of a river = 50 square feet.

These figures are illustrative. The table at left shows that boats often erode more than .003 inches off the shore. They erode less only if they go very slowly. Wakes have been peeling land away in places like the Chesapeake Bay, Intracoastal Waterway and Norfolk Broads for decades, and you can read the studies.

Erosion per Gallon of Fuel. Most boats travel 2 - 4 miles per gallon (see list), compared to cars which travel 20-40 miles per gallon. Boats' huge fuel use goes into pushing water down and sideways, causing wakes. The wakes release their energy on shorelines, causing erosion. When a boat travels 3 miles on a gallon of gas, it peels off the shore 3 thousandths of an inch times 3 miles times two sides of a river = 8 square feet per gallon.

The cost of boating includes losing your own and others' land. Losing 8 square feet per gallon, for land worth $2 per square foot, is a land cost of $16/gallon. (Land values of $2/square foot = $90,000/acre. Some riverfront areas are worth much more, some less.) 

Some boats go farther on a gallon, like the 16-foot Maryland boat in the table, which goes over 6 miles per gallon, so it erodes 17 square feet/gallon = for a land cost of $34/gallon.

Canoes and sailboats erode much less, because they make tiny wakes.

How to Protect Shores.  Boats can go dead slow (erosion starts about 2 mph) or travel in a stone-lined area. Canals and harbors (Washington, Venice, Shanghai, etc.) are stone-lined to reduce erosion from constant boat traffic. Erosive energy does not decrease much with distance from shore.

Landowners need plants on the shore wherever possible, not rock or walls, to keep water from speeding up & damaging downstream banks, and to protect habitat along the shore. If rocks are placed, dirt can be packed among them and protected with anti-erosion cloth while plants grow in the dirt and over the rocks.

Storms & Floods. Storms & floods do wash some land away. On the other hand floods rise over riverbanks, and drop the soil they carry on top.. Floods and storms have been happening for millennia, so river widths have reached a balance between the soil taken and delivered by storms. 

Unlike floods, boat wakes do not raise the water level, so the sediment they erode stays on the river bottom and is not placed on top of riverbanks. Wakes make the water shallower and wider as they erode land away.

Natural processes move rivers without widening them, by depositing soil on gentle natural slopes inside each curve while the river cuts on the outside of curves. In contrast, boat wakes erode the inside of curves, because they focus wake energy on the inside when a boat rounds the curve. A steep slope inside a curve, or a river getting wider, are symptoms of boat wake erosion.

Dangers from Boat Propellers & Noise. Propellers can cut swimmers, fish, mammals and vegetation. Propeller guards provide protection. Propellers and engines also create harmful underwater and surface noise.

Click for Table of Contents / Site Map
Updated 10 December, 2022
Boat Speeds & Erosion

GO SLOW !

WAKES

ERODE

BoatWakes.org

 

NO WAKE !

Boats Erode

8 Square Feet per Gallon of GAS Burned

BoatWakes.org

 

Boat Speeds & Erosion

 

Speed

Erosion by Each Boat

 

MPH

Inches

Square Feet per

Hour

Gallon

California

27

.004

93

7

California

21

.004

68

7

Maryland

20

.003

53

17

California

17

.005

80

11

California

14

.008

99

19

Tasmania

7

.001

3

 

California

7

.001

7

11

Click for details & metric and original studies. All boats 25 feet long, except Tasmania unknown and Maryland had mix with median 16'.

 

Info@BoatWakes.org
Table of Contents / Sitemap
Fuel Efficiency of Many Boats

Signs to Use or Adapt:
Locations of Site Visitors
Local Efforts against Wake Erosion:

Oregon River, OR, WA, USA
Willamette River, OR, USA
Spokane area, WA, USA
Pend Oreille, ID, USA
Mokelumne River, CA, USA
Sawyer County, WI, USA
Okoboji and Spirit Lakes, IA, USA
Lake of the Ozarks, MO, USA
Nanticoke River, MD, USA
Chesapeake Bay 2016, MD, USA
   and in Mayo
Lake Anna, VA, USA
Lake James, NC, USA
Palmetto Bay, FL, USA
Love Your Lake, CAN
Cowichan Lake and River, BC, CAN
Rideau River, ON, CAN
Muskoka Lakes, ON, CAN
Paudash Lake, ON, CAN
Western Australia, WA, AUS
Bassendean, WA, AUS
Clarence River, NSW, AUS
   and its university study
Shoalhaven River, NSW, AUS
   and its university study
   and studies of Williams River
   and Hawkesbury River
Compare Shoalhaven + Williams
Gordon River, TAS, AUS