You’re not alone in your perspective of COPs at the ramps.
Local LEOs in SC have had their hands full for the past 6 or so years that we’ve seen at the more popular boat ramps.
Asked our Sheriff Deputies what seems to be the problem and he just chuckled and pointed to the flags and hats of the crowd they were sorting out. The Deputies advice was to avoid areas where those were present and come back when they were gone…
Fortunately for us the Deputies point us towards some very nice ramps a little more out of the way that are excellent…at least on the week days, we haven’t tried to use any of them on Saturdays or Sundays after the fiasco(s) we’ve seen. While most boaters are nice decent respectful people there are always those that think the general rules don’t apply to them for some convoluted reason.
In some measurable part It’s why we chose to eventually rent a marina slip down south…it avoided the ramp issues.
The marina we decided upon had a great reputation and zero tolerance for misbehavior.
It was a very pleasant experience and well worth it for us.
We’ll most likely continue to rent a slip in the future.
Our slip cost about $400-450/month.
We rented for 12 weeks (3 months = 84 days) and used our boat an average of 4 days per week (48 days).
Our general cost was $1200 which converts to a bulk daily cost was $4.76/day and our cost per day of use was $8.33/day.
Our time savings was roughly 2 to 3 hours per boating day by not having to prep/launch/retrieve/de-prep for a cumulative time savings of about 96-to-144 hours which directly increased our time on water.
Then, as we were in a tidal estuary it relieved us of a lot of the logistics of timing our launches and retrievals to be done at high tide ( the ramps at low tide are abysmally slick
& who wants to be on YouTube anyway while drifting out to sea in a minivan
).
So for us it worked out great!
Our relatively high utilization rate helped.
Doubtful we would have been able to get out even a quarter of the days we did if we hadn’t been in a slip.
(Very doubtful we would have had as an enjoyable time if we’d had to contend even once with the situations our Sheriff Deputies had to contend with even if we weren’t directly involved but merely bystanders. Just one incident would have soured the experience.)
Everyone’s situation is unique to their needs and desires which they have to find the balance that works for them.
We’d suggest that if one does rent a slip try to do it when you know you can get the most number of days of use on your boat.
(Even if you pay a higher monthly rate than as a full seasonal slip.)
Best Regards
Over Easy
as an everyday vehicle. 
