Authorities said Wednesday that they are trying to end Log Bay Day, the raucous — and at times drunken — gathering on Lake George where the local sheriff believes a boater spent time Monday before being involved in a hit-and-run boat crash that killed a 9-year-old girl.
"We're going to start to strongly discourage large crowd-sourced party events in Log Bay, i.e., the only one there," Dave Wick, executive director of the Lake George Park Commission, said.
Lake George Boat Accident
WNYT Television
Wick met with Warren County Sheriff Bud York and District Attorney Kate Hogan on Wednesday amid what he said was strong public support for minimizing future events at Log Bay Day, where dozens of arrests were made Monday for boating while intoxicated, driving while intoxicated, disorderly conduct and other charges.
At about 9:30 p.m. Monday, Charlotte McCue was killed and her mother, Courtney, was injured in a boat crash near Cramer Point. The two were in the center of their 28-foot Gar Wood boat, "Enchanted Evening," when a 21-foot Larson speedboat ran up and over them before leaving the scene, York said.
The girl died in the crash and her mother needed hospital care.
Investigators said the man who operated the boat that caused the collision, Alexander West, 24, left the scene and moored the vessel at an empty slip at a Lake George resort. No charges have been filed as the investigation continues.
York said it is believed that earlier in the day, West was at Log Bay Day, a gathering of boaters in an isolated Lake George cove that often features alcohol consumption and nudity.
Investigators are trying to trace his moves in the hours before the crash.
West went to authorities Tuesday morning after police had spent the night looking for those on his boat, York said.
Efforts to reach West over the last two days have been unsuccessful.
Charlotte McCue devoted hours a week to gymnastics and a smile was quick to cross her face, said her godmother, Devon Conway.
"Everything revolved around her gymnastics," Conway said.
On Monday night, Conway was at the Lake George Club when she learned two boats had collided near the point.
Charlotte and her family were from Carsbad, Calif., but vacationed each summer in Lake George. The girl was about to enter fourth grade.
Online gymnastics records list Charlotte as a gymnast with the Coastal Gymnastics team, which traveled all over southern California. She scored highest on the bars at a recent event in Pasadena.
Charlotte practiced nine hours a week and had started when she was 5 years old, a representative at Coastal Gymnastics said.
Conway said she has known Courtney McCue since they were 2 years old, adding the two families still vacationed together each year on Lake George.
"We grew up together at the Lake George Club, during the summers," she said. "This is where we first met, where we played together as kids. It's a huge memory, and now there's going to be this black cloud over it."
Conway is joining others in the call to end Log Bay Day.
Last year approximately 700 people in 125 boats attended Log Bay Day, according to a report by the Lake George Park Commission. This year's party was a smaller, but rowdier crowd than in past years, Wick said.
In addition to the fatal boat crash, Log Bay Day left a man paralyzed after he dove off his pontoon boat into four feet of water and broke his neck, Wick said.
Washington County Sheriff Jeffrey Murphy, whose county borders the portion of the lake where the party is held, said his officers arrested five drunken drivers after a few years with no such arrests on Log Bay Day. Murphy said he would support any effort to end Log Bay Day.
Ways to minimize the size of parties at Log Bay will be discussed over the coming year, Wick said, adding that the event is difficult to regulate because it's an informal gathering.
"There's not a permit that can be revoked," Wick said. "There's no regulation that can be put in place limiting the size of an activity."
More officers will be needed after 5 p.m., when revelers get rowdier, he said. At last year's event, an afternoon storm cleared out the crowd.
"Certain times come when you have to decide whether what we can do currently is enough to discourage future tragedies," Wick said.
Conway said she hopes for an end to Log Bay Day. She noted the number of arrests, which this year reached 26.
"This has to end," Conway said. "We need to do everything we can to prevent something like this from happening."
One suggestion was for Log Bay to have the same mooring buoys as Sandy Bay, which has a limited number, Nancy Pasanen of Glens Falls said.
"Log Bay Day is unsafe," Pasanen said online. "Look at the amount of resources we have to expend each year on one day because a loud rabble is allowed to carry on an out of control party on the lake."
Toby Jordon, 35, grew up in Bolton Landing and said he stopped going to Log Bay years go.
Still, he said if Log Bay is blocked, revelers will simply choose to go elsewhere.
"I just feel it isn't the day's fault that someone isn't responsible enough to drink," Jordon said. "Most of the people that are complaining don't know how to have fun or don't have friends."
York said he believes West was at Log Bay Day and he urged people to look through photos of the celebration to see if West's boat was there.
West's boat was found abandoned at Tea Island Resort on Lake Shore Drive about a mile and a half away.
York said four other people, described as being in their 20s, were onboard the green-and-white Larson when the collision occurred.
jlawrence@timesunion.com • 518-454-5467 • @jplawrence3