ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Memorial Day weekend is known as the start to boating season. Law enforcement agencies will be busy on the water, including the United States Coast Guard.
“The mission of the Coast Guard, it’s very different from the other military branches because our main focus is mainly search and rescue out here, saving lives. It just appealed to me,” Coxswain Owen Chambers said. “Plus, I get to drive the boat, I like driving boats.”
USCG responds to about 100 calls a year. Chambers describes some of the strategy him and the crews use to find people who’ve fallen overboard, among other things.
“We also have what’s called search patterns. We have two kinds of those. We have drifting search patterns, which we use to determine set and drift, what way the current is moving and how fast it’s moving. And we can use that with our time, speed, distance to find out where someone would be if they went in the water at a certain time. We also have what’s called precision search patterns, where we know on where we’re searching for and what we’re looking for,” Chambers explained. “Some of the bigger ships out in the ocean are our cutters. If they’re looking for, like, drugs or whatever, that people, the drug smugglers, were just thrown overboard and we can find that using search patterns. By determining set drifts, we can figure out where it went in the water.”
Chambers anticipates this weekend being the busiest so far this year. As boaters hit the water for the holiday, he says it’s important to have emergency gear on board.
What You Need To Know
United States Coast Guard is preparing for the busiest weekend of the year so far
It reminds boaters to keep emergency equiptment on board at all times
Crews perform about 300 recreational safety boardings a year by boarding other boats to check for safety gear
Without the approriate gear, USCG says fines could range anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars
“Always know what you’re doing and where you’re going. Always make sure you have fire extinguishers on board, flares, life jackets, always. You have to have the right number of life jackets for people you have on board. Little kids always have to be wearing their life jackets. Make sure you know the area you’re going to be going in so you don’t run aground,” he said. “And make sure you look at the weather forecast beforehand so you don’t go out and get, you know, stuck in bad weather. It’s always important to have a working radio on board so you can call out for distress. The international distress frequency is channel 16.”
Crews also perform about 300 recreational safety boardings a year. They hop on board other vessels on the water to make sure boat operates have the safety gear they may need. They call it pre-search and rescue.
“If they have everything they need, then we’ll send them on their way. All good. And that takes like 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Quick warnings. And if they don’t have something on board, like an expired lifejacket or they don’t have the right number of lifejackets or like expired flares or expired fire extinguishers, then we’ll write them a warning or a violation notice,” Chambers said.
“We could terminate their voyage. What that looks like is pretty much we follow them back to whatever port or wherever they came from. Tie them up. They’re terminated, and we give them the 4100 — pretty much like a receipt saying, ‘you need to get this fixed.’ If not, you could be subject to fines, depending on how serious consequences is how much that would cost them,” Boarding Officer Brayden McCaw said.
McCaw says fines can be anywhere from a couple hundred to a couple thousand dollars. Sames goes for open containers on board.
“They could be charged federally … that could be up to $5,000 or jail time,” McCaw added.
“We like to think of our recreational safety boardings as Pre-SR, Pre-search and rescue. Because if people have everything they need, and they do actually get in trouble, and then they have all the tools that will help us find them and we’ll help keep them alive,” Chambers said.
There will be many law enforcement agencies on the water this season, similar to years prior. USCG advises everyone to be safe in order to have fun.
“We’re not coming out to ruin anyone’s day. We’re just here to make sure people are safe,” Chambers smiled.