A Sad Christmas Day

[Jackdaw]

K I understand your argument but isn't the it's not my job mentality the exact problem we are railing against.

That's fine. But I really doubt that there was someone in the station that said screw it, 'Dancing with the stars' is on. They personally may have wanted to go, but they have orders. Those orders are based on policy and priorities created by budget constraints and global concerns. My bigger point again; If you want to argue policy, take it to DC, the guys in the local stations are just doing their jobs.

 

[Benny17441]

I agree with you, I'm also aware their mission has changed and they will only dispatch help if there is life or limb in peril, but that does not grant them the right to ignore your concerns and flat out lie about what is being done. After all it is tax payers like all of us who pay their salaries. I can understand if they would have said that they were making phone calls to see if a commercial tow company was interested in the salvage but to indicate that they were readyng one of theyr boats is really shameful. I do hope some USCG officer with enough concern and honor for their work would read this thread and run it up the flag pole.

 

[caguy]

I don't know about the CG in our area, except for the fact they are Johnny on the spot when it come to boarding and inspecting.
I do have utmost repect and admiration for our Lifeguards. When help is needed they are right there offering to help. They even tow without hesitation or charge.

 

[Ray Bowles]

Would this have been a situation for the use of a "Pan-pan" call advising of a non-tended vessel loose in a navigable area? I had heard this same type action before and the CC issued that call.
As for the Coasties themselves, they will have my respect forever. We were caught in a tropical storm (65 mph measured aboard our boat), but safe, when a CC helo flew over us heading to sea to save someone that wasn't a prepared or lucky as us. As I said, respect forever.
Ray

 

[John]

Get sued?

That was my thought. If you had rescued the boat and there was some damage, or even no damage, the boat owner could get a lawyer and sue.

Bottom line it's the owners responsibility, not yours. I also can't blame the CG for not risking lives just to save property.

Maybe we should put up a sign on our boats when leaving it, saying 'Please save my boat if it's in trouble - I promise not to sue!" Or start a 'No sue Boat Club' with a special sticker that other members recognize...

While something like that is always possible, I actually doubt that most sailboat owners would sue in that situation. I think they'd take it for what it was - a good-hearted attempt to help somebody out.

As for the Coasties: I read something a while back - I don't remember where, maybe Latitude 38 - that said that part of the reason they don't rescue property (boats) is that it's considered government competition with private enterprise (salvors, etc.).

 

[Gunni]

Securite Securite!

Les;
If instead of making a phone call, you had picked up your marine VHF handheld and broadcast a Securite on Ch.16 it is much more probable that someone would have taken a shot at helping out. You can get pretty creative with a securite, providing location, vector, nature of problem and something like "drifting uncontrolled toward breakwater" to get things hopping. This is one of those things that all boaters hate to see happen. And more than once, if nearby, I've jumped in the dink to render assistance - if only to reset an anchor and call the closest marina with the boat name/registration.

 

[Bill Roosa]

I'm going to have to side with the USCG on this one. No loss of life possable so why risk our young men and women saving just a boat? there job is hard enough with all the crazy individuals going to sea in storms and calling the CG because the sails ripped or my boat is rocking badly in the waves, or I got a hang nail. you folks know what I'm talking about if you listen to VHF after/during a storm. It is absolutly rediculous what the CG has to contend with on a daily basis.

 

[KD3PC]

Frankly, if their mission is changed so radically, we ought to just fold them into the USN and be done with them.

Their mission was changed and they were folded in to that wonderful NEW agency, DHS.....google "New CG Headquarters, washington DC" to get a whiff of how DHS is handling the change...or not.

You now get "response" from DHS....Our Coasties deserve better, but we as a public don't care enough to force the hand of DHS...

Oh well

 

[med2463]

We were active in the Coast Guard Auxiliary on Lake Michigan and enjoyed being out on the boat and doing search and rescue. Sometime in the 1980s we were no longer able to rescue boats due to a policy change with USCG. The link below will provide more information regarding a commmercial towing service suing the USCG because of their competition with the towing services.
http://www.boatersed.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=104263

 

[Gail R]

Stu is spot on

Les,

Once the CG became part of the DHS their mission changed. This happened about a decade ago, quite enough time for you to be made aware of it, I think. Nothing personal, but I guess "common knowledge" isn't as common as I may have thought. It should have been their responsibility, though, to tell you that unless "life & limb" are threatened, they no longer save "just boats." If there was no one on the boat, they will do nothing. Nothing. They should have told you at least that.

It would have been foolhardy of you to make that attempt, as well-meaning as I know you meant it to be. Your safety is your responsibility. Hopping on a dragging boat in 30 knot winds sounds pretty dangerous to me.

"Didn't need to happen" could well be directed at the skipper of the dragging boat, not the CG. It is sad to see any boat go up on the rocks.

I'm not quite sure that lobbying the Port will do you any good. Vessel Assist and TowBoatUS are private firms. I don't know what you'd have to do to get these private firms to provide a rescue boat in your harbor. You might want to do some more research on that before you contact the Port.

Sad story, yes, and well reported by you, but that's the reality of the role of the CG these days. Sorry to have to pass the news on to you. We monitor Ch. 16 traffic all the time, of course, and hear repeated CG distress calls, and repeatedly hear from the CG that if no people are in danger, then the skipper should call Vessel Assist. That's simply how it is.

Stu

As a taxpayer, I am perfectly happy that the Coast Guard is not out there pulling boats off the rocks/mud when no life/limb is in danger. I'm also happy that they are no longer towing someone who ran out of fuel, or (my personal favorite) escorting someone lost in the fog from the party anchorage to their marina.

Setting aside the administrative merging with DHS and the politics of it all.....

In my freelance writing job, I've talked at length with one of the top guys at our local base in South Portland Maine. Every time the CG has to dispatch a vessel, it costs a ton of $$$. It also can potentially and unneccessarily tie up resources if a real emergency happens.

When we have such reports (boat adrift, vessel aground, etc.) our local CG NNE issues a Securite' call advising local mariners of what is going on where, and advising them to 'keep a sharp lookout and assist if you are able to do so safely.' Sea Tow or Boat US are only going to go out if there is some chance they will get some renumeration for it. You want to help someone yourself? By all means go, but realize you do that at your own risk (and/or reward if you can get salvage rights and the $$ that goes with it).

The CG did nothing wrong here. The onus is on the boat owner to secure his/her vessel by picking a secure anchorage and using whatever ground tackle is necessary to keep it in one place. If the weather was that dicey, you would think he's have picked a more sheltered spot, used a better anchor, or stayed on board to take action if he started to drag.

Bottom line: It is not up to John Q. Taxpayer to protect someone's private property.

 

[JohnS]

If you saw an empty car rolling down a hill towards some trees, would you call 911 and ask someone to come save it? I'd rather have our emergency service people available for life threatening emergencies.

Yeah, the woman at the CG station should have simply told you the truth, (that they weren't going to send any help for an empty boat). But apparently they had already received many calls about the boat, and maybe they tried the honesty method only to get several earfuls from a few callers upset to learn that the CG doesn't care about their property. So maybe this woman switched to a little white lie just to avoid another earful. Not quite the crime of the century. IT WOULD have been irresponsible of her to suggest someone go and attempt the rescue themselves.

Fact is, for most of us our boats are nothing more than expensive toys and its not worth the risk and expense of sending out a team to rescue them when we fail to secure them properly.

And I can't swear to it, but I believe the change in the CG mission to no longer rescue property pre-dates their reorganization into DHS.

 

[Rick D]

Re: Stu is spot on

OK, OK, I'm old and haven't fully adjusted to my new life under DHS and the CG as bureaucrat instead of helpful agency. However, is it just too much to ask that they contact a private tower and issue an alert to others in the area? Oh, and tell Les what they did? I don't know enough about what happened here but from what Les relates, it was simple discourtesy and negligence.

PS to add: I do both understand and support the passing of property assists to private towers. That just makes sense. What I am reacting to here is no evident attempt to assist in any way and no communication with the informing party. Jeesh, just step up to the plate already!

 

[ancientmariner]

"If you saw an empty car rolling down a hill towards some trees, would you call 911 and ask someone to come save it? I'd rather have our emergency service people available for life threatening emergencies."

This may not be a good analogy. How about,
If you saw an empty car that had rolled into the middle of the road near a bend?

It is not the individual's responsibility to look after someone else's property, especially at possible risk to themselves, but it is not usually difficult to report the matter to someone better equipped to deal with the issue.
Perhaps there is no one available/willing to deal with the problem, but the more the public can be informed, the less risk there is of compounded problems. Think of rush hour traffic reports.

As Gunni suggested, an All Stations VHF announcement might or might not have resulted in a saved boat, but would at least have given the maximum number of boaters the information.

 

[sinnettc]

Re the VHF - Did I misunderstand the regs? I thought using the marine frequencies is prohibited when your're ashore except from a licensed base station.

 

[Gail R]

OK, OK, I'm old and haven't fully adjusted to my new life under DHS and the CG as bureaucrat instead of helpful agency. However, is it just too much to ask that they contact a private tower and issue an alert to others in the area? Oh, and tell Les what they did? I don't know enough about what happened here but from what Les relates, it was simple discourtesy and negligence.

PS to add: I do both understand and support the passing of property assists to private towers. That just makes sense. What I am reacting to here is no evident attempt to assist in any way and no communication with the informing party. Jeesh, just step up to the plate already!

We only have one person's story of this incident yet we're all passing judgement.

Do we know for sure that the CG did not put out a Securite' or pan-pan call? Since it is established that the CG had received multiple calls, perhaps the person on the phone gave short, quipped answers to our poster here because there was no time to provide him with an item-by-item recount of all they were doing about the situation. IOW, they were BUSY!

As for the private tow service, what private tow service is going to go out and "rescue" a boat if they don't even know who the owner is and/or whether that owner will pay for said service?

What is known is that the owner failed to secure is vessel and he lost said vessel. That is a shame, but the owner has no one to blame but him or herself.

 

[Gunni]

Re the VHF - Did I misunderstand the regs? I thought using the marine frequencies is prohibited when your're ashore except from a licensed base station.

Not for recreational boaters engaged in shore to ship communication. In this case Les would be alerting boaters in the vicinity. You are required to identify yourself. eg "This is Capt Les of the sailing vessel LessIsMore"

 

[dkdoyle]

Have we degraded so far as a society that we can't help each other? I certainly hope not. The one thing that I always loved about sailors was their willingness to always lend a hand. My slip neighbor had a dock line snap. I dug in my locker and we secured it. Then I let the dock master know so he could call him. My line was returned neatly coiled on my dock. That's what I expect from a fellow sailor.

 

[Stu Jackson]

Have we degraded so far as a society that we can't help each other? I certainly hope not. The one thing that I always loved about sailors was their willingness to always lend a hand. My slip neighbor had a dock line snap. I dug in my locker and we secured it. Then I let the dock master know so he could call him. My line was returned neatly coiled on my dock. That's what I expect from a fellow sailor.

No, we definitely have not.

Please understand that this particular topic does not really relate to your example. It was limited to a pretty much one-of-a-kind happenstance where a boater had a house on land with an unusally good view of a marine event where an anchored boat got loose. Pretty rare, I'd say.

I think the responses so far have covered just about everything in a reasonable manner.

Your comment is one that I'm sure all of us would respect. I'm also sure that all of us have various stories about tying our neighbor's dock lines, towing other boaters in when they needed help, and the like.

I believe that "help out" tradition lives on in all of us as individual boaters.

 

[AtlanticAl]

You should have said, you saw a guy aboard it, with a scarf tied round his face shouting Ahla Akbar. No seriously, i used to work in a coast guard department of the UK, (fishery protection) and we once, saw a sailboat moving on our radar, we could see the boat visualy, it had it sails down, but was moving, we thought it strange, so (government money didnt cost us anything, and it was something to do) we launched a boat from our ship, Rigid inflatable boat, a fast craft, our guys boarde the boat, they shouted back on the radio, "no one aboard" i was on the bridge of the cutter, with binos, saw a guy in a rubber dingy, rowing for all he could after the boat, turned out to be a frenchman, that had sailed all over the uk, leaving his boat at anchor, and that one time, it got swept by the current, when he arrived back on his boat, we had two of our guys onboard the boat, (but they didnt know how to sail it) and one of our guys towing it. He was glad to get his boat back, didnt even give us a bottle of wine for our trouble.

 

[Gail R]

Have we degraded so far as a society that we can't help each other? I certainly hope not. The one thing that I always loved about sailors was their willingness to always lend a hand. My slip neighbor had a dock line snap. I dug in my locker and we secured it. Then I let the dock master know so he could call him. My line was returned neatly coiled on my dock. That's what I expect from a fellow sailor.

Of course we all should help eath other out. As private citizen boaters, my husband and I have towed people; helped grounded boats; provided local knowledge; helped unfoul rollerfurlers, anchor rodes, and lobster pot lines; relayed VHF transmissions; lent tools and parts; and provided drinks, dinner, snacks, and desserts to people we've just met. We've also been the recipient of a favor or two. People can and should help each other out, but that does not mean the we should expect taxpayers to do the same.