Issue 13 : Jul/Aug 2000
It was quiet in the marina. I was up the mast attending to a recalcitrant anchor light. A U.S. Coast Guard boat with two large outboards idled into the entrance and up and down the lines of docked boats. I knew enough to keep an eye on the big red RIB as I worked. It is well known that young men occasionally do foolish things. Being in uniform will not prevent this, although rigorous training and discipline will help. I knew all that. I had been a young man in uniform, responsible for other young men in uniform, in fact. It had been an imperfect experience.
When the Coast Guard boat had completed its tour, the coxswain dropped his hand to the shift levers. I stopped working on the light and wrapped both arms and legs around the stick. The coxswain dropped one engine in reverse and left one ahead, advanced the throttles smartly, and left the now-turbulent marina in a manner that would please young boys everywhere. Mystic did perhaps a dozen heavy rolls, aggravated by my weight at the masthead.
When I finally regained the deck, another sailor in the marina made reference to the Coast Guardsmen as “children with guns.” Fair enough in this case. The sailor offering this comment was himself a law-enforcement officer, and the two lads in the overpowered RIB were certainly in need of some adult supervision.
It is not always like that. We had been boarded by a competent petty officer two years before, while we were docked in the same slip. He was dressed in body armor and carried a sidearm. I don’t think body armor and a sidearm have been particularly useful to anyone in our locale since the French and English tried to fight it out to the last Indian for control of North America. While I did not fear his sidearm, I was a little worried about his clipboard. In his manner and in his inspection, however, he was professional, knowledgeable, and reasonable.
These days, even the U.S. Coast Guard admits they are underfunded and poorly equipped for their mission. They have retention problems and the associated lack of training and experience that go with that.
Maybe there is something wrong with the mission. I see that the Coast Guard has been gathering opinions again to see if there should be a mandatory life jacket law that they would, quite naturally, enforce. They are also being criticized for not being able to rescue a group of recreational sailors who died tragically.
Maybe as a nation and a culture we have the wrong attitude toward all this. But I’m in favor of wearing life jackets. We always wear them when underway. I’m not in favor of laws requiring that we and other sailors do so. There is, in the fabric of our culture, the idea that if we make enough laws the world will be a better and safer place. Will enough laws prevent all loss of life at sea? Will anybody want to go to sea for recreation if there are that many laws? Do you want an OSHA-approved sailboat? Should the Coast Guard, which admits they already have more missions than they have resources for, be expected to save the lives of all recreational boaters who get into trouble?
In my opinion the answer to all of these is no. We have only to look at the state of general aviation in our country to see what happens when we regulate and litigate a recreational activity until it becomes too expensive. We can’t afford to make boating absolutely safe by force of legislation. Certainly, we can’t afford to make boating safe for the unwilling and the unskilled.
In the end we, the recreational boaters, need to take care of ourselves and our fellow boaters. We should not expect to be taken care of by regulations and rescued by the Coast Guard every time we make a mistake. They can’t do it every time. When we dial 911 on shore, as when we call Mayday on the water, we have done one thing that may improve our odds. Once we have done that, however, we should immediately look for what else we can do to help ourselves. The attitude we need is self-sufficiency.
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