I missed the origional post but Rick covered the Coast Guard and Auxillary aspects pretty well. When I was a reserve officer in the Florida's Game and Fish Commission years ago we would have Courtesy Boat Inspections on land. Usually at a busy boat ramp. People could drive up and we would inspect their equipment. If we found something then we would tell them they had a problem. Since they were on land and not operating the boat we could not cite them. We may have given out stickers if they passed but I can't remember. If they did NOT have what was required by law we would not cite them but there were other officers on the water and if they got pulled over..... Most of the water related agencies in Florida have every available resource on Patrol during the busy summer holidays. We used to have the inspections on these days to try to educate as many people as we could get...... Remember that the Courtesy inspections are just that. The CG or other law enforcement really do want people to have the right equipment, they don't want to jump on people and write a bunch of citations. Usually the people who had the equipment were safer boaters just because they thought about what ifs. Some people wanted their boats inspected to show how much safety equipment they had on board! 8-) PFDs are a very, very big deal. If anything will get written it will be a PFD related violation. The USCG or US law enforcement has the right and power to inspect boats on the water for safety equipment at any time. Its not a Courtesy inspection at that point. 8-) I have only come close to being checked one time while kayaking. The Wildlife Officers saw we were wearing PFDs, had lights on since it was a darkish and did not give us a second glance. The poor little sailboat that had been all but becalmed all afternoon, we paddled past them on the way out and past them again coming back, got written up since they did not have a light producing device after dark. They did not intend to be out after dark but the winds had other ideas. They were not prepared. The officers gave them some information on how to light up the sail along with the paperwork.... Later... Dan McCarty *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Jun 13 2001 - 08:31:31 PDT
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