jrc@ritcv.UUCP (James R Carbin) (10/28/83)
Re: Joh Crocker's question about the authority of U.S. Coast Guard Auxilliary
to board your boat.
I asked a long time active member of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxilliary about this.
He said that the answer is NO UNLESS a regular U.S. Coast Guard Officer or
Petty Officer is aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Auxilliary vessel in which case it
would be flying the U.S. Coast Guard ensign RATHER than the U.S. Coast Guard
Auxilliary ensign. In effect, the vessel is no longer an Auxilliary Vessel, but
Regular Coast Guard. He cited two examples when the latter might happen. 1)
A regatta is being held and certain waters have been placed off limits to all
but regatta participants. The Auxilliary might be asked to patrol the area but
with a regular U.S. Coast Guard Officer or Petty Officer on board. If after
one or more warnings, a vessel continued to violate the restricted area, the
Officer or Petty Officer could issue a citation which would presumedly require
boarding that vessel. (He added that normally the Auxilliary does not like to
get involved with citations, but would rather encourage boating safety, partici-
pate in search, rescue, and emergency missions, etc.) 2) In time of declared
war, the nature of the Auxilliary would most likely change to be more of a back-
up Coast Guard with duties and privileges assigned to it as appropriate.
If anyone disagrees, please feel free to politely add your comments. I am
only restating information learned from this individual and I have every
reason to believe that he would be quite knowledgeable based on his background.
In discussing this, I discovered an interesting thing. Not all Coast Guard
Stations are manned by Regular U.S. Coast Guard personnel, but rather by
ALL Auxilliary personnel. This explains why my local C.G. Station does not
issue citations to boaters who do not obey the 5 mph speed limit in the
channel even though the station is located at the mouth of the channel. It
also explains why they frequently call the County Sheriff's Patrol Boat.
Evidently they are relaying compalints, etc.
as ever,
j.r. {allegra,seismo}!rochester!ritcv!jrc
P.S. On the subject of Coast Guards, my experiences with the Cardinal Coast
Guard (which is the Canadian Coast Guard) have been very very positive. For
example, once when I called on channel 16 to tell them that I did not have
channel 23 for weather in the Kingston, Ontario area, they gave me an alternate
frequency and asked me to "standby one." When they responded, I was talking
to the meteorologist himself. They had taken the time to ask him to come
next door and talk with me. Now that's real service. Also, if you want to
place a Marine Telephone Call, you contact the Cardinal Coast Guard and they
perform this service for you. (Naturally it has a lower priority if they have
other things to do.)