It’s a beautiful day; the sun is shining and you’ve just launched your boat for the start of another season on the water. And the thoughts of that tough winter just past are quickly forgotten. Everyone’s on board, excited about the day ahead, so off you go. The day unfolds as you had hoped it would. Until a problem leaves you dead in the water.
It could be that you’ve run out of gas or you’ve had a mechanical breakdown of some kind. What to do?
The real question should be “what should I do before I leave the dock?”
And the answer is “review your check list.”
Many boaters would quickly call up the Canadian Coast Guard for help. “I’m out of gas. Can you rescue me?” “We’ve been anchored and now my engine won’t start. Can you rescue me?”
The perception that is all too common among boaters in Canada is that the Coast Guard not only saves lives but assists boaters who are stranded. The Coast Guard, in other words, is a water-based version of the Canadian Automobile Association.
Scott Miller, a Maritime Search and Rescue Coordinator with the Canadian Coast Guard says this is a real problem for his people.
Yes, he says, the Coast Guard will come to someone’s aid if they’re having mechanical problems or have run out of gas. But only if there is imminent danger to them or their vessel.
In other words, if your tanks have simply run dry but the weather is fine and your vessel isn’t drifting towards rocks or any other kind of danger, then, Miller says, the Coast Guard won’t come directly.
“We issue a marine assistance radio broadcast and if a towing company or a vessel of opportunity answers it, then we won’t be towing”.
Miller says there’s a very good reason for this, as 75 to 80% of calls for help to the Coast Guard are non-distress calls; the most common ones deal with boats that have broken down or run aground or have just run out of gas – far and away the most common call to the Coast Guard.
Running aground is the next most common issue, Miller says. “What we often hear from the boater is ‘that rock wasn’t here last year’. We see an awful lot of boaters who have no charts or, if they do, they don’t know how to read them or they don’t know how to work their GPS. We’ve even seen some boaters trying to navigate with road maps!”
Mechanical failures can strike any boater, any time. That’s just part of boating. And it’s not necessarily an indication that the boater has simply failed to properly look after the boat.
But Miller says the Coast Guard often finds that those who break down do so repeatedly.
“And when we investigate, we find the boat is in total disarray down below”, he said.
The most common calls for help to the Coast Guard are all based on situations that are entirely preventable by the boat owner. In the past, the Coast Guard responded to all these calls. But their resources for dealing with real emergencies were constantly stretched thin.
The U.S. Coast Guard made it official years ago that they will no longer conduct tows – except in life-threatening or dangerous situations. That has spawned a number of towing operations to spring up in the United States. So American boaters are forced to call and pay for a private tow if they run out of gas or break down and are not in any immediate danger.
Can we expect the Canadian Coast Guard to adopt a similar policy?
“Presently, the policy with the Canadian Coast Guard is to defer towing vessels that are not in distress or in non-potential distress situations to commercial tow operators which means if you are the skipper of that vessel you best be prepared to pay for the tow.
Now let’s say you are a responsible owner – as most owners in Canada are. You have maintained your vessel and it has plenty of fuel on board for your trip. You’ve even filed a sail plan describing in detail where you are going and when you expect to arrive and you have left your sail plan with a responsible individual for safe keeping. Excellent.
Just make sure that any contact number you put on that sail plan is a number where someone can be reached 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“Don’t put your office number down”, says Miller. If the Coast Guard calls and the phone isn’t answered, a contact number isn’t much good.
And, at journey’s end, he says, let everyone know that you are where you should be and everything is fine.
Perhaps your best way to be prepared every time is to review your check list before you leave the dock – fuel, battery, charts, weather, instruments, safety equipment, lifejackets on, etc.
It’s all simple common sense – preventative medicine – and it can go an awfully long way to ensuring that every time you venture out on your boat, you will be safe and you will return safely as well.
Submitted by the Canadian Safet Boating Council
