On Nov 11, 11:38 am, Joe wrote:

Well Greg.. better than Wilbur, but a puppet anyhow.

Plonk



Hi Joe:

Aside from the proliferation of personal attacks here, I would like to
add one more thought before I drop this futile thread.

Like Joe, and I suspect many others before us, I had visions of making
my boat pay for its self. Some of the "projects" I researched were the
following:

Sailing lessons: Sole Proprietor Schedule C. I did this and did not
make a profit for three consecutive years. As such I was violating the
SPIRIT of the IRS Hobby Loss condition.

Unispected Passenger Vessel CFR Sub Chapter T and of course 6
passengers Charter Boat: Same problem plus even more regs/insurance.......

I even considered buying one of the 80' Katrina gulf shrippers that
were going for $100k. Now that's a lot of boat for the bucks! Oh, then
haul Christmas trees from PNW down to So Cal.

Don't forget, since my daughter was going to school at U of Hawaii I
thought I would just pack some of my daughters things and "move her to
college" via sailboat. But of course pack in some "extra stuff" that
she could sell at a "yard sale" later. That is even more "legal" than
your project. As you belive, "hey... its MY stuff! I cna do anything I
want to with it!" Very Nieve to belive that.

After reading CFR, IRS, USCG, Customs etc, TO BE SAFE I then went and
talked to: 1) USCG Enforcement, 2) an Admiralty Attorney ($190/hr),
and 3) a CPA who specialized in marine business.

The bottom line I learned is: when that 28 year old in charge of a
USCG boarding party hops aboard your boat its up to her to interpret
the law. They will ALWAYS error on the side of conservative
interpretations. In other words, "if walks like a duck, and quacks
like a duck.... Youre screwed. Cause, your boat is seized, you go to
jail, and you of course loose your coffee. Now you get to fight the
court system to prove your innocence and get the boat back.

It wasn't worth the risk losing the boat I worked my ass off to get.

Dear Joe, you said that you did not know the definition of the IRS
term "Hobby Loss" that means you have many more lessons to learn and
many more land mines to avoid. Another telling statement you made to
me was, "Im on vacation... gonna buy some souvenirs... an take it home..."

BUT other places you are claiming to be a COMPANY and will sell your
beans on e-bay and are seeking donations for poor children. With those
statements on the web you already screwed yourself. You blabbed your
plan on the web! That is evidence fool!

You can not have it both ways......... you re either using 10,000 lbs of
beans for personal use, which is a ridiculous amount for personal use,
or you're a full on coastwise vessel transporting cargo for your
company. You can not have it both ways!

Besides do you really think Foss, Crowley, Tidewater, Hornbeck,
Chouest, Sause, Seacor, SIU, SUP, and IBU are going to let some JIPO
hippy boat wannabe undercut their business?!?!?!? Your dealing with
Tony Sopranno only here the law and USCG are his Paulie Walnuts.

Do it right or don't do it..........................

Bob

In article . com,
Joe wrote:
snip

A good friend tried and
tried to get me to set the business up as a church, removing all tax
burdens.

'The Church of the Exalted Bean'?

--
Molesworth

On Nov 11, 4:25 pm, Molesworth wrote:
In article . com, Joe wrote:

snip

A good friend tried and
tried to get me to set the business up as a church, removing all tax
burdens.

'The Church of the Exalted Bean'?

--
Molesworth

Praise Jah Jah Molesworth . Ya mon, and in 1971 when my Loto number
was 52 I got that letter: "you are herby order to report to the
Portland Induction Center for your Pre Induction physical.

W T F !

Quick.......... Send $15 bucks and become a Priest of the Universal Life
Church. Ya, that's the ticket....! I even had a card! My Selective
Service Draft Board laughed at the card and me.

Then 1982, Vance my dive supervisor at Ocean-Tec Diving Contractors
had a "church" in Morgan City La. Of course we took communion every
chance we were on the beach. Even had a band. They were called The
Penetrators. Vance ran into a little problem with the IRS. Even though
he had a church and a congregation of the willing the IRS just did not
buy it. But by then he owed thousands in back taxes, penalties, fines.
Praise Jah Jah !! Ya mon, we be jammin...give praise to Jah and pass the
ganja mon

These half baked attempts to skirt the law's intent are so painfully
obvious. You can not say on one hand: 1) im a coffee company doing
commerce and list phone and address in TX, then say on the other hand
2) Im just a tourist buying 10,000 pounds of coffee for personal use
and going to sail it back home cause it mine im exempt form
everything. But the best is to spread the whole scam on the web!?!

Loose lips sink ships.......................
bob

On Nov 11, 2:00 pm, Bob wrote:
On Nov 11, 11:38 am, Joe wrote:

Well Greg.. better than Wilbur, but a puppet anyhow.
Plonk

Hi Joe:

Aside from the proliferation of personal attacks here, I would like to
add one more thought before I drop this futile thread.

Like Joe, and I suspect many others before us, I had visions of making
my boat pay for its self. Some of the "projects" I researched were the
following:

Sailing lessons: Sole Proprietor Schedule C. I did this and did not
make a profit for three consecutive years. As such I was violating the
SPIRIT of the IRS Hobby Loss condition.

Unispected Passenger Vessel CFR Sub Chapter T and of course 6
passengers Charter Boat: Same problem plus even more regs/insurance.......

I even considered buying one of the 80' Katrina gulf shrippers that
were going for $100k. Now that's a lot of boat for the bucks! Oh, then
haul Christmas trees from PNW down to So Cal.

Don't forget, since my daughter was going to school at U of Hawaii I
thought I would just pack some of my daughters things and "move her to
college" via sailboat. But of course pack in some "extra stuff" that
she could sell at a "yard sale" later. That is even more "legal" than
your project. As you belive, "hey... its MY stuff! I cna do anything I
want to with it!" Very Nieve to belive that.

After reading CFR, IRS, USCG, Customs etc, TO BE SAFE I then went and
talked to: 1) USCG Enforcement, 2) an Admiralty Attorney ($190/hr),
and 3) a CPA who specialized in marine business.

The bottom line I learned is: when that 28 year old in charge of a
USCG boarding party hops aboard your boat its up to her to interpret
the law. They will ALWAYS error on the side of conservative
interpretations. In other words, "if walks like a duck, and quacks
like a duck.... Youre screwed. Cause, your boat is seized, you go to
jail, and you of course loose your coffee. Now you get to fight the
court system to prove your innocence and get the boat back.

It wasn't worth the risk losing the boat I worked my ass off to get.

Dear Joe, you said that you did not know the definition of the IRS
term "Hobby Loss" that means you have many more lessons to learn and
many more land mines to avoid. Another telling statement you made to
me was, "Im on vacation... gonna buy some souvenirs... an take it home..."

BUT other places you are claiming to be a COMPANY and will sell your
beans on e-bay and are seeking donations for poor children. With those
statements on the web you already screwed yourself. You blabbed your
plan on the web! That is evidence fool!

You can not have it both ways......... you re either using 10,000 lbs of
beans for personal use, which is a ridiculous amount for personal use,
or you're a full on coastwise vessel transporting cargo for your
company. You can not have it both ways!

Besides do you really think Foss, Crowley, Tidewater, Hornbeck,
Chouest, Sause, Seacor, SIU, SUP, and IBU are going to let some JIPO
hippy boat wannabe undercut their business?!?!?!? Your dealing with
Tony Sopranno only here the law and USCG are his Paulie Walnuts.

Do it right or don't do it..........................

Bob

Bob the point I'm making is the boat is not for hire, as I'm carrying
my own cargo. The vessel is un-inspected and the crew is not paid.

I did heed your message and went ahead and applied for a cargo
freight endorsement on my USCG documentation, my vessel was only
registered in the state. The freight endorsement was 29 bucks.

http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-m/vdoc/fees2.htm

Sorry about the Capt Kangaroo remark.. I thought you were another of
Wilbur's puppets.

Joe

"Bob" wrote in message
ps.com...
On Nov 11, 4:25 pm, Molesworth wrote:
In article . com, Joe
wrote:

snip

A good friend tried and
tried to get me to set the business up as a church, removing all tax
burdens.

'The Church of the Exalted Bean'?

--
Molesworth

Praise Jah Jah Molesworth . Ya mon, and in 1971 when my Loto number
was 52 I got that letter: "you are herby order to report to the
Portland Induction Center for your Pre Induction physical.

W T F !

Quick.......... Send $15 bucks and become a Priest of the Universal Life
Church. Ya, that's the ticket....! I even had a card! My Selective
Service Draft Board laughed at the card and me.

Then 1982, Vance my dive supervisor at Ocean-Tec Diving Contractors
had a "church" in Morgan City La. Of course we took communion every
chance we were on the beach. Even had a band. They were called The
Penetrators. Vance ran into a little problem with the IRS. Even though
he had a church and a congregation of the willing the IRS just did not
buy it. But by then he owed thousands in back taxes, penalties, fines.
Praise Jah Jah !! Ya mon, we be jammin...give praise to Jah and pass the
ganja mon

These half baked attempts to skirt the law's intent are so painfully
obvious. You can not say on one hand: 1) im a coffee company doing
commerce and list phone and address in TX, then say on the other hand
2) Im just a tourist buying 10,000 pounds of coffee for personal use
and going to sail it back home cause it mine im exempt form
everything. But the best is to spread the whole scam on the web!?!

Loose lips sink ships.......................
bob



Like Greg Hall said. The man's about five inches short of a foot. When he
started with the "ecology" crap I knew right away he'd gone off the deep
end. Any fool knows profit comes first and ecology second in any successful
business venture.

I tried to tell him people hadn't done the sailing ship routine for
transporting commodities for a hundred or so years because there was no
profit in it but he wouldn't listen. I even told him if he had any chance at
all at a profit that it would require paying cargo BOTH WAYS but he still
didn't listen. I told him to set up shop in Belize and use Fed Ex or UPS to
ship coffee to individual customer but he was so set in his pie-in-the-sky
plan that he didn't even consider it. He's too inflexible.

So, he'll find out the hard way. "If you're stupid you gotta be tough." All
I can say is Joe must be one tough hombre by now.

Wilbur Hubbard

On Nov 11, 5:30 pm, Joe wrote:
On Nov 11, 2:00 pm, Bob wrote:





On Nov 11, 11:38 am, Joe wrote:

Well Greg.. better than Wilbur, but a puppet anyhow.
Plonk

Hi Joe:

Aside from the proliferation of personal attacks here, I would like to
add one more thought before I drop this futile thread.

Like Joe, and I suspect many others before us, I had visions of making
my boat pay for its self. Some of the "projects" I researched were the
following:

Sailing lessons: Sole Proprietor Schedule C. I did this and did not
make a profit for three consecutive years. As such I was violating the
SPIRIT of the IRS Hobby Loss condition.

Unispected Passenger Vessel CFR Sub Chapter T and of course 6
passengers Charter Boat: Same problem plus even more regs/insurance.......

I even considered buying one of the 80' Katrina gulf shrippers that
were going for $100k. Now that's a lot of boat for the bucks! Oh, then
haul Christmas trees from PNW down to So Cal.

Don't forget, since my daughter was going to school at U of Hawaii I
thought I would just pack some of my daughters things and "move her to
college" via sailboat. But of course pack in some "extra stuff" that
she could sell at a "yard sale" later. That is even more "legal" than
your project. As you belive, "hey... its MY stuff! I cna do anything I
want to with it!" Very Nieve to belive that.

After reading CFR, IRS, USCG, Customs etc, TO BE SAFE I then went and
talked to: 1) USCG Enforcement, 2) an Admiralty Attorney ($190/hr),
and 3) a CPA who specialized in marine business.

The bottom line I learned is: when that 28 year old in charge of a
USCG boarding party hops aboard your boat its up to her to interpret
the law. They will ALWAYS error on the side of conservative
interpretations. In other words, "if walks like a duck, and quacks
like a duck.... Youre screwed. Cause, your boat is seized, you go to
jail, and you of course loose your coffee. Now you get to fight the
court system to prove your innocence and get the boat back.

It wasn't worth the risk losing the boat I worked my ass off to get.

Dear Joe, you said that you did not know the definition of the IRS
term "Hobby Loss" that means you have many more lessons to learn and
many more land mines to avoid. Another telling statement you made to
me was, "Im on vacation... gonna buy some souvenirs... an take it home..."

BUT other places you are claiming to be a COMPANY and will sell your
beans on e-bay and are seeking donations for poor children. With those
statements on the web you already screwed yourself. You blabbed your
plan on the web! That is evidence fool!

You can not have it both ways......... you re either using 10,000 lbs of
beans for personal use, which is a ridiculous amount for personal use,
or you're a full on coastwise vessel transporting cargo for your
company. You can not have it both ways!

Besides do you really think Foss, Crowley, Tidewater, Hornbeck,
Chouest, Sause, Seacor, SIU, SUP, and IBU are going to let some JIPO
hippy boat wannabe undercut their business?!?!?!? Your dealing with
Tony Sopranno only here the law and USCG are his Paulie Walnuts.

Do it right or don't do it..........................

Bob

Bob the point I'm making is the boat is not for hire, as I'm carrying
my own cargo. The vessel is un-inspected and the crew is not paid.

I did heed your message and went ahead and applied for a cargo
freight endorsement on my USCG documentation, my vessel was only
registered in the state. The freight endorsement was 29 bucks.

http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-m/vdoc/fees2.htm

Sorry about the Capt Kangaroo remark.. I thought you were another of
Wilbur's puppets.

Joe- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

HI Joe:

thanks for the appoogy. Around here not really needed. HOwever, I do
beg your attention! Once you pack stuff on a boat, any boat, with the
intent (or implied) to sell the stuff you are conducting commerce on a
vessel. Just think quacking ducks. Enough said............

Before I end I support your search for profit. Sitting in every galley
of every stinking rig/osv/processor or F/T ive been on the top topic
besides, DUIIs and child support is how to get off that thing and get
rich.

Good luck....................
Bob

On Nov 11, 10:12 pm, Bob wrote:
On Nov 11, 5:30 pm, Joe wrote:





On Nov 11, 2:00 pm, Bob wrote:

On Nov 11, 11:38 am, Joe wrote:

Well Greg.. better than Wilbur, but a puppet anyhow.
Plonk

Hi Joe:

Aside from the proliferation of personal attacks here, I would like to
add one more thought before I drop this futile thread.

Like Joe, and I suspect many others before us, I had visions of making
my boat pay for its self. Some of the "projects" I researched were the
following:

Sailing lessons: Sole Proprietor Schedule C. I did this and did not
make a profit for three consecutive years. As such I was violating the
SPIRIT of the IRS Hobby Loss condition.

Unispected Passenger Vessel CFR Sub Chapter T and of course 6
passengers Charter Boat: Same problem plus even more regs/insurance.......

I even considered buying one of the 80' Katrina gulf shrippers that
were going for $100k. Now that's a lot of boat for the bucks! Oh, then
haul Christmas trees from PNW down to So Cal.

Don't forget, since my daughter was going to school at U of Hawaii I
thought I would just pack some of my daughters things and "move her to
college" via sailboat. But of course pack in some "extra stuff" that
she could sell at a "yard sale" later. That is even more "legal" than
your project. As you belive, "hey... its MY stuff! I cna do anything I
want to with it!" Very Nieve to belive that.

After reading CFR, IRS, USCG, Customs etc, TO BE SAFE I then went and
talked to: 1) USCG Enforcement, 2) an Admiralty Attorney ($190/hr),
and 3) a CPA who specialized in marine business.

The bottom line I learned is: when that 28 year old in charge of a
USCG boarding party hops aboard your boat its up to her to interpret
the law. They will ALWAYS error on the side of conservative
interpretations. In other words, "if walks like a duck, and quacks
like a duck.... Youre screwed. Cause, your boat is seized, you go to
jail, and you of course loose your coffee. Now you get to fight the
court system to prove your innocence and get the boat back.

It wasn't worth the risk losing the boat I worked my ass off to get.

Dear Joe, you said that you did not know the definition of the IRS
term "Hobby Loss" that means you have many more lessons to learn and
many more land mines to avoid. Another telling statement you made to
me was, "Im on vacation... gonna buy some souvenirs... an take it home..."

BUT other places you are claiming to be a COMPANY and will sell your
beans on e-bay and are seeking donations for poor children. With those
statements on the web you already screwed yourself. You blabbed your
plan on the web! That is evidence fool!

You can not have it both ways......... you re either using 10,000 lbs of
beans for personal use, which is a ridiculous amount for personal use,
or you're a full on coastwise vessel transporting cargo for your
company. You can not have it both ways!

Besides do you really think Foss, Crowley, Tidewater, Hornbeck,
Chouest, Sause, Seacor, SIU, SUP, and IBU are going to let some JIPO
hippy boat wannabe undercut their business?!?!?!? Your dealing with
Tony Sopranno only here the law and USCG are his Paulie Walnuts.

Do it right or don't do it..........................

Bob

Bob the point I'm making is the boat is not for hire, as I'm carrying
my own cargo. The vessel is un-inspected and the crew is not paid.

I did heed your message and went ahead and applied for a cargo
freight endorsement on my USCG documentation, my vessel was only
registered in the state. The freight endorsement was 29 bucks.

http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-m/vdoc/fees2.htm

Sorry about the Capt Kangaroo remark.. I thought you were another of
Wilbur's puppets.

Joe- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

HI Joe:

thanks for the appoogy. Around here not really needed. HOwever, I do
beg your attention! Once you pack stuff on a boat, any boat, with the
intent (or implied) to sell the stuff you are conducting commerce on a
vessel. Just think quacking ducks. Enough said............

I agree, and as long as the items you are selling are cleared in and
out of customs, you have the proper receipts, and a safe vessel I can
not see what would be considered a problem or illegal. I've spoke with
the USCG Public releations officer and have messages into District 8
command, and the MSO Galveston to make sure all is OK and have them
over to see the boat and sample some coffee if they can make it. I
have the Customs transponder decal, FDA approval, a customs agent,
state documentation, and will have federal documentation with a cargo
endorsement.



Before I end I support your search for profit. Sitting in every galley
of every stinking rig/osv/processor or F/T ive been on the top topic

Well one of our expressed goals is to be a model of Profit and
Substainability for others to follow. I like you.. have done my hitch
in the oilfield and have always looked for a way to make a profit with
a boat on my schedule and nickle. I've decided I like doing that more
than anything. They say if you want to be successful in a career find
one you have a passion for and will enjoy.

With this type of info in the news every day IMO we can not wait to
switch to sail. With public support and the proper product to make a
profit with we can force or user in a new way of doing things..sail..
profit and public demand for greener products will be the only way to
change to sail (that a 300 dollar drums of oil) . BTW or local gulf is
the dirtiest and most polluted by ships.

Click or cut and paste to read the rest of the story:

http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/274399

Ship pollution kills 60,000 yearly: Study

"The sludgy fuel is "basically the dregs of the oil refining process,"
and contains nearly 2,000 times as much sulphur as the diesel fuel
burned in trucks in North America and Europe, says David Marshall, of
the Clean Air Task Force, one of the groups that commissioned the
study."

Best Regards,
Joe





Good luck....................
Bob- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

On Nov 12, 7:25 am, Joe wrote:


Hello Eco-Joe:

When I considered a similar effort while in pursuit of profit on the
west coast I kept running into a wall. I may have missed something or
not asked the right questions. I hope that you would make a brief list
of the organizations/departments and any permits, licenses,
documentation needed to make your plan work. The second Rule of
Acquisition states Never Give Up... Never Surrender! So, would you mind
summarizing what you have already posted other places below? For
example, how is your vessel Registered or Documented? You also
mentioned USDA, US Customs, Bill of Laden etc.

Bob

On Nov 13, 9:42 am, "Roger Long" wrote:
Joe,

Here's another thing to consider about a boarding situation. There isn't a
boarding officer alive who, finding a 41 foot sailboat stuffed to the gills
with coffee, isn't going to jump, quite reasonably, to the conclusion that
at least one of the bags contains the coke that is actually paying for the
trip. In these days when any document can be produced with PhotoShop and a
computer, the paperwork isn't going to be worth much more than the paper in
the head. They are going to want to see inside every single bag, probably
by dumping it on the cabin floor.

Here's one of my Coast Guard stories:

I get a frantic call from a client whose 58 foot fiberglass fishing boat I
designed. The boat is hove to on Georges Bank with the crew sitting on the
deck, hands clasped behind their heads, and a 19 year old with an automatic
rifle pointed at them. A cutter is standing by with the 50 caliber trained
on the pilothouse. The boat has a plywood web frame just forward of the
collision bulkhead. In order to provide good drainage and put a little
extra beef at the point where the stem might hit a floating object, we put
in a small triangular block of foam at the bottom, poured resin around it,
and then glassed it over. The volume of the whole thing was less than a
cubic foot.

One of the boarding party looked through the small access hatch, saw the
small flat portion of floor, and said, "Ah Ha! Secret compartment." They
weren't going anywhere until they saw inside. Gaining access meant cutting
a large opening in the collision bulkhead so they wanted the boat and crew
to remain hove to for twelve hours while a chainsaw was sent out by another
cutter. Your tax dollars at work, a medium endurance cutter and crew
transporting a chainsaw to look for less than 1 cubic foot of dope. Sitting
with your hands locked behind your neck for twelve hours while missing the
pay for half a fishing day is pretty grim. The one sign of sense the
boarding party showed was letting the captain make a radio call.

The owner of this boat wasn't just anybody. He was the co-owner of the
waterfront centerpiece Marine Trade Center in his home port with a fleet
right across from the Coast Guard Base. They could look out the windows and
see his boats. I printed up a copy of the construction plan for him and he
rushed off with it to the Coast Guard. Four hours later, he secured
agreement to have the compartment cut into under USCG supervision at a
shipyard upon the vessel's scheduled return. The key was pointing out that,
if the Coast Guard couldn't get into it, the crew couldn't either. By the
time the boat returned, common sense had prevailed, face had been saved, and
someone quietly agreed that it would be silly to send a bunch of police,
customs, FDA, state drug enforcement agents, and local news reporters (which
I'm sure the owner was savvy enough to point out he would call) to watch a
Geraldo Rivera moment on a small block of foam.

All that saved my client a nightmare as the difficulty of getting into the
space and the fact that the USCG didn't have a chainsaw on board the cutter.
Think how easy it will be for them to open all those coffee bags.

"OK Sir, you are free to put the coffee back in the bags and proceed on your
way. Have a good day."

--
Roger Long



Roger speaks the truth !


If it walks like a duck and quacks (probable cause)............. youre
screwed! Or as our girls and boys in blue are trained to belive "...
what would a reasonable person assume when looking at a "recreational"
sailboat stuffed with bags of commerce leaving a known drug exporting
area?
Bob

On Nov 13, 11:42 am, "Roger Long" wrote:
Joe,

Here's another thing to consider about a boarding situation. There isn't a
boarding officer alive who, finding a 41 foot sailboat stuffed to the gills
with coffee, isn't going to jump, quite reasonably, to the conclusion that
at least one of the bags contains the coke that is actually paying for the
trip. In these days when any document can be produced with PhotoShop and a
computer, the paperwork isn't going to be worth much more than the paper in
the head. They are going to want to see inside every single bag, probably
by dumping it on the cabin floor.

Would he if you had receipt from the seller, belize customs
inspection and clearence papers, FDA food facility papers, Customs
transponder, Customs Agent contact info, stamped passports, letter
from the Mayor of San Pedro, letter of introduction from USCG, Federal
documentaion, with cargo endorsement, planned sailing routes and
arrivals all ready logged with USCG and customs, Press coverage,
ect..ect..ect

Come on Roger I have more confidence in an officer in charge of a
boarding party than that.

Joe






Here's one of my Coast Guard stories:

I get a frantic call from a client whose 58 foot fiberglass fishing boat I
designed. The boat is hove to on Georges Bank with the crew sitting on the
deck, hands clasped behind their heads, and a 19 year old with an automatic
rifle pointed at them. A cutter is standing by with the 50 caliber trained
on the pilothouse. The boat has a plywood web frame just forward of the
collision bulkhead. In order to provide good drainage and put a little
extra beef at the point where the stem might hit a floating object, we put
in a small triangular block of foam at the bottom, poured resin around it,
and then glassed it over. The volume of the whole thing was less than a
cubic foot.

One of the boarding party looked through the small access hatch, saw the
small flat portion of floor, and said, "Ah Ha! Secret compartment." They
weren't going anywhere until they saw inside. Gaining access meant cutting
a large opening in the collision bulkhead so they wanted the boat and crew
to remain hove to for twelve hours while a chainsaw was sent out by another
cutter. Your tax dollars at work, a medium endurance cutter and crew
transporting a chainsaw to look for less than 1 cubic foot of dope. Sitting
with your hands locked behind your neck for twelve hours while missing the
pay for half a fishing day is pretty grim. The one sign of sense the
boarding party showed was letting the captain make a radio call.

The owner of this boat wasn't just anybody. He was the co-owner of the
waterfront centerpiece Marine Trade Center in his home port with a fleet
right across from the Coast Guard Base. They could look out the windows and
see his boats. I printed up a copy of the construction plan for him and he
rushed off with it to the Coast Guard. Four hours later, he secured
agreement to have the compartment cut into under USCG supervision at a
shipyard upon the vessel's scheduled return. The key was pointing out that,
if the Coast Guard couldn't get into it, the crew couldn't either. By the
time the boat returned, common sense had prevailed, face had been saved, and
someone quietly agreed that it would be silly to send a bunch of police,
customs, FDA, state drug enforcement agents, and local news reporters (which
I'm sure the owner was savvy enough to point out he would call) to watch a
Geraldo Rivera moment on a small block of foam.

All that saved my client a nightmare as the difficulty of getting into the
space and the fact that the USCG didn't have a chainsaw on board the cutter.
Think how easy it will be for them to open all those coffee bags.

"OK Sir, you are free to put the coffee back in the bags and proceed on your
way. Have a good day."

--
Roger Long