Boating activity is now filling Charleston Harbor, but how many of us really enjoy our time on board as much as we would like to? With a few simple adjustments, everyone can finally have the weekends they dream of.
The first weekend of each month could be row and blowboat weekend. The only recreational boats allowed on the harbor that weekend would be unpowered.
Sailboats, kayaks, rowboats, and rafts could all enjoy the harbor. The drone of powerboats, aside from police and rescue boats, would not dominate the harbor. Wakes would not roll across the surface, crossing one another until the entire water surface from James Island to Mount Pleasant, is as churned up as the water found in a bucket relay.
The crabs and fish would finally be able to hear. Swimming under water wouldn’t subject you to the kind of sound usually encountered in an engine room. We would again be able to hear the wind and the birds.
It would be a weekend for the patient and the fit, the people who are prepared to work with wind and tide and connect with the water. For two days, quiet and beauty would cover the harbor.
The second weekend of each month could be family boating weekend. Nobody gets to go out unless they have kids on their boat and something with Sponge Bob Square Pants on it.  
Boats being launched would be required to have a cooler containing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and carrot sticks. Beer is limited to one can per adult on board and can’t be consumed prior to 4 p.m.
The maximum sized motor permitted for family boating weekend would be 50 horsepower.
Family boating weekend would give us the opportunity to revive the genuine pleasures of sharing family time on the water that the monster boats and extreme wakeboarding of today seem to have wandered away from. You won’t be able to get to Capers Inlet from Remley’s Point in half an hour, but perhaps you’ll notice more and be able to talk to the kids on the way. The people on the water will nearly all be sober and those who aren’t won’t be going much faster than 20 knots.
The third weekend of each month could be conspicuous consumption yachting weekend.
Use of the harbor would be restricted to boats which cost more than $100,000. They can tool around, burning diesel fuel and watching their on board DVD players as they try to impress each other. The sailboats which never sail can putter by on their auxiliaries past the fishing boats which never fish.  Everyone will be required to wear blue blazers and yachting caps.
While most of us will have to watch from shore, there will be compensation. We’ll jack up the cost of marine diesel fuel to $10 a gallon. A cup of shrimp paste at a dock side restaurant will sell for $25. Those yachtsmen who have something on board that breaks can seek the services of a mechanic on shore who just finished enjoying family boating weekend and who will be required to charge them enough to make sure he can do some boating in the Bahamas next year. Those having their wives serviced at a day spa will also pay premium rates.
Will the owners of the mega boats avoid Charleston? Of course not. If they can still afford it, the harbor of the Holy City will become the East Coasts premier place to show up in the hyper competitive world where people have to prove they still have money.  Those of us sitting on the shore will be too busy counting our money to get angry about it.  When it’s over, the mega rich will be faxing orders to boatyards around the planet for something bigger and more impressive for next season.
Obviously this system is rather repressive. However the fourth weekend of the month would repay every complaint readers of this proposal might raise. The fourth weekend would give many people what they’ve always dreamed of: wide open weekend.
If their behavior is any indicator, a lot of people go boating to escape the limits of their day to day lives. What they really want is a weekend with no limits at all.
Wide open weekend would have a minimum horsepower rating of 100 plus 10 additional horsepower for ever foot of boat over 15 feet. This is the weekend for “personal watercraft,” those aquatic motorcycles as well.
Wide open weekend would be an opportunity for the Department of Natural Resources and police departments to take a well earned rest. They’ll be staying home.  Anyone launching a boat will have to sign a lengthy release accepting the fact that the harbor will be a maelstrom of testosterone, gasoline and alcohol for two days.
And what a two days it will be. Nobody can launch without proving they have a 12 pack of beer for everyone on board in the cooler. DSS can make sure there are no children on board. Loaded weapons would be encouraged.  From 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 p.m. Sunday, nothing will be safe. Speed will be unlimited. The rules of the road will be forgotten.
It should be spectacular.  Something like biker week in Myrtle Beach with a chance of drowning. On Monday, we can send the DNR and police out to tow whatever is floating in the harbor to the dump.
We can take our children to Waterfront park, clutching their Sponge Bob action figures and show them this is what the world would be like without rules. In two days, the unlimited salt water redneck impulse could be completely exhausted for an entire month.
Sharing the harbor doesn’t really work because we want it to be different things. By taking turns, everyone can get what they need. blow and rowboat, family boating, conspicuous yachting and wide open weekend would fill the summer months with contrast and variety.
Why should we accept less?  We can start in June.

William Hamilton (www.wjhamilton.com) is an attorney who lives in I’On Village. See more columns at www.moultrienews.com