Any one with a Coastie story, please post. The more amusing, the better!



New Year's Eve, 1976.

It was a lovely, warm, cloudless night on the River. There were hundreds
of boats of all shapes and sizes milling around, trying to find a spot
to anchor. A local radio station, was sponsoring the biggest fireworks
display ever shot in Florida The big hoo-rah was to be a 18 inch, 120
pound star shell designed by a Japanese fellow.

There were hundreds of boats and tens of thousands of people on shore.
The 2 city police boats were out in force, and the Auxiliarists were
having a big chuckle at the Police expense.

In those days, many police were nothing more than uniformed cowboys or
blue suited thugs. Thank goodness things have changed!

In his infinite stupidity, the Chief of Police determined it would cause
an increase in crime if boaters were to tie up to city docks, anchor in
the city limits or tie up to The City owned property anywhere near the
show. So, Chief Bozo set about to make life miserable for all involved
by putting up No Docking and No Anchoring signs on both sides of the
river for 2 miles in both directions.

The way the river curves, if you were to go to "The two mile limit"
there is no way you could see the show over the bridges, buildings,
shipyards and general skyline. So, the boating public took to milling
around the show area.

For a while it wasn't to bad, but as more and more and MORE boats showed
up. "No Anchoring," the police announced on their loudspeakers as they
zoomed around, far too fast, in their new, dark blue, high performance
police boats.

They continued to harass the boaters, who by now had taken up a "loop"
pattern, basically going in a big oval, but remaining underway. Not much
the blue suited cowboys could do about it. Zooming about and trying to
ride heard, one police boat zoomed under a bridge, just as the other
zoomed past the bridge piers from the left. With an impressive K-BAM two
thirds of the fleet became a statistic.

The Coasties went into action salvaging a waterlogged Lieutenant and a
couple of well fed crewmembers, while other Auxiliary took the task of
towing what was left of 2 blue boats to the dock. They didn't sink, but
were no longer seaworthy. (Boston Whalers really don't sink!)

While attempting to tie up the damaged police boats, several
out-of-breath, doughnut fed (and shaped) policemen waddled up to order
us not to tie up here! We asked them where they wanted THEIR boats, and
only then did the uniformed baboons realize the boats trying to tie up
were badly damaged police patrol boats.

It turns out, the waterlogged Lieutenant in charge of the operation,
knew as much about boats as my Labrador knows about an IRS audit. It was
his first trip out on a boat. (It seems being a relative of the police
chief has its advantages. He was recently hired AS an officer.)


Now, with the police out of the way, anchors began to fall like gentle
raindrops and the area calmed down a great deal.


The police department, not to be thwarted by a mear loss of 2 boats,
launched their last. This fellow was roaming about shouting (no
loudspeaker) to people to up-anchor and move OR ELSE. The resulting
mass of boats (pretty much fender to fender) began to seethe back and
forth again, and soon formed up into the familiar oval loop. Apparently,
this was not satisfactory to the donut engorged numb nuts aboard, and,
in the fashion of a sheepdog began a run in the opposite direction of
"the loop" trying to move all the boats back to a 2 mile zone. He was so
intent on making life miserable for the boaters, he forgot to watch out
for the fireworks barge making its way through the crowd of boats. The
barge clipped his stern and made scrap metal out of his Johnson 175.
Strike 3. We laughed so hard I had pains in my side.

The Auxiliary towed this genius to the nearest dock, which was near the
fireboat station. The police dude wanted to commandeer the fire boat,
but, a suprisingly bright fellow with the fire department told him the
fireboat was out of service.

Once again, the anchors fell like autumn leaves, as boating folks
settled in to enjoy the fireworks show. It was a really impressive show,
and that 48" shell. WOW!

Casualty report for the night. 3 police boats damaged in collisions.

Capt. Frank