On Thu, 02 Jun 2005 01:22:41 GMT, Red Cloud®
wrote:

Is it illegal to have expired had held and gun fired flares on board when,
at the same time, you have a full compliment of "fresh" ones meeting USCG
regs?


It's not illegal by the book, but some boarding officers will use their
discretion to cite you for it anyway. They can!

I was waiting for somebody to mention this.

Two years ago I was cited for having expired flares aboard my
Contender even though they were in a separate container kept in a
separate storage container and labeled as "expired signal
flares/smoke".

I complained to the MSO in New London and their argument was that it
was a violation to have expired safety signaling equipment aboard - it
didn't matter that I had a complete set of up-to-date flares/signals
aboard.

My argument was that the up-to-date signaling flares were accessible
and labeled properly and that the emergency out-of-date flares were
there for extreme emergencies and placed in an area of the boat where
you would have to look for them to find them.

Didn't matter - the rule is the rule.

So now I carry extra up-to-date flares and give the old ones to the
local Volleys for SAR training.

Later,

Tom