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Coast Guard Nonsense
I need to whine a little.
Yesterday, I was returning from fishing on Lake Ontario in my 14' nookular powered aluminum yacht. It was a typical Sunday on Irondequoit Bay: Large boats driven by nitwits were travelling at top speed through clearly marked no-wake zones, throwing enormous wakes down the aisles of docked boats at the marina near the inlet, and making it dicey for boats at the nearby launch. In the midst of all this madness, I was spotted by the Coast Guard and deemed to be a clear threat to homeland security. I was pulled over for a safety check. I was cited for not having my registration, a distress flag and a fire extinguisher. They were correct on the first two issues, but based on their own rules and those of NY State, I'm not required to have a fire extinguisher. Actually, I bought one when I first got the boat, but found that there wasn't a good place to mount the thing except for right next to the (portable) gas tank, which didn't make much sense considering how the probability is close to 100% that a fire would start there. I have 7 days to have a boarding officer look at the boat again, or pay a fine and forfeit my son and my lawnmower. This inspection will be based on opinion and interpretation, so I'm looking for votes from the peanut gallery, even though this may be a futile effort. The boat has 3 aluminum bench seats which do NOT have storage underneath. They're sealed and filled with floatation material. There are no storage lockers of any kind, and the hull is one layer - no bilge, no floor of any kind. NY State says I'm exempt from the extinguisher requirement: - Outboards less than 26' and of open construction The Coast Guard's site says I must have an extinguisher if any of these conditions are met: a.. Inboard engines are installed. b.. There are closed compartments and compartments under seats where portable fuel tanks may be stored. c.. There are double bottoms not sealed to the hull or which are not completely filled with flotation materials. d.. There are closed living spaces. e.. There are closed stowage compartments in which combustible or flammable materials are stored. f.. There are permanently installed fuel tanks. (Fuel tanks secured so they cannot be moved in case of fire or other emergency are considered permanently installed. There are no gallon capacity limits to determine if a fuel tank is portable. If the weight of a fuel tank is such that persons on board cannot move it, the Coast Guard considers it permanently installed.) Help me waste my time arguing with the Coast Guard. :-) That last rule sounds silly for my situation. First of all, I can left my 6 gallon tank with my toe. But, even so, if the engine/tank area (aft of the rear bench seat) went up in flames, how likely is it that I'd try to lift the tank and throw it overboard??? Excluding that, the most likely fire hazard I can imagine is if a salmon made a fast run and my reel built up a lot of heat. I'm done whining. |
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