wrote in message news:

I agree, if this is the law, it gets broken a hundred times a day,
whenever the CG goes out cruising down the channel. Are you really
saying all boats have to reduce to idle speed whever a coast guard
boat passes them in the channel or approaches from any direction in
open water?
I spent 6 years in the CG and I NEVER heard that we had any special
right to ignore COLREGs. In fact we were supposed to the the ones
presenting the perfect example, held to a higher standard than the
other riff raff on the water. We always assumed the other boaters were
clueless and were plesantly surprised when the few did actually
understand their responsibility.

The "Rules" are broken, bent, misused, ignored, complied with to the
letter/selectively on a daily basis by all people with all degrees of
experience, knowledge, size, type, intent, etc............
The good news is that "no harm, no foul". The bad news is that quite
frequently there is harm and in 99.9% of the cases, when this happens, BOTH
individuals responsible, share the responsibility.
In the case shown here, you can pick out majors errors on the part of both
parties.
My own feeling..... rather than place blame, look for the errors and add
them to your constantly growing inventory of things to avoid/ watch for.

otn