Portsmouth Police Put Unregistered Mooring Owners On Notice

PORTSMOUTH, RI—Boaters are supposed to register moorings with the town, but sometimes people move away, abandon the mooring or just forget about it, according to Portsmouth police Sgt. Stephen Burns.

That's why the Portsmouth police and the harbormaster's office recently notified the public to take any suspect mooring balls out of the water.

They're hazards to navigation, and if they're not registered properly, they're getting removed, Burns said.

A mooring is basically "a large block or mushroom" that sits on the bottom of the water, he explained. The boats are tethered to the mushroom by chains, so the bigger the boat, the bigger the block and the heavier the chains.

Police routinely look for unregistered moorings when they cruise around the harbor, he said. If they check the mooring its number doesn't show up on the town's active list, of it it's unreadable, police will slap on a bright orange tag.

"We have a bunch of mooring vendors" the town uses for these jobs, he said. If the owner fails to act, one of the mooring operators will get the call to yank it.

"They'll hold them for a while," he said.

Burns said the moorings will be treated like abandoned property under state law.