Boat inspections are important

Boats are everywhere right now!

You’ll see them being towed to a river launch site so the owner and family or friends can go king salmon fishing. You’ll see them speeding across a lake pulling a skier or perhaps just headed to a favorite fishing hole. You’ll see them trailered behind pick-ups and SUV’s headed for the owner’s favorite fresh or saltwater boating destination. Something you won’t see a lot of is a boat passing a USCG Auxiliary safety inspection, and that’s a shame.

The USCG Auxiliary encompasses a group of volunteers assisting the US Coast Guard in providing boating safety instruction and safety inspections of recreational boats, among other tasks. Every year, I usually try to get my riverboat inspected and, with successful compliance, placing my safety inspection sticker on the port side cabin window.

I took my boat over to Big Lake North this past Memorial Day for this year’s safety inspection. The USCG Auxiliary has done recreational boating safety inspections at this location on specified weekends for years. Since I only live a couple of miles from the facility, I usually go there for the safety inspection assuming I have the boat ready or nearly ready by Memorial Day.

Several years ago during an inspection, shortly after I had acquired my inboard riverboat, the inspector asked me to turn on the running lights.

Nothing!

That was the only failed item that year. The inspector was kind enough to offer to re-inspect the boat that same day if I could get the lights functional. I made a quick trip home and after inspecting both lights, replaced one bulb and cleaned the corroded contacts on the other lamp. I went back for the, now successful, inspection and sticker.

This year, I had looked over everything and made sure stuff worked — I thought. As we’re working our way through the check list of legally required equipment and electronics, everything was clicking like clockwork. Then the inspector asked to see my signal flares to verify they were in date.

Oops!

My most recent set of flares had expired last October. Again, the inspector offered to issue the safety inspection paperwork and sticker later that day if I could provide a set of in-date flares.

He thought Burkeshore Marina might be open. That facility is only a stone’s throw from Big Lake North so I headed over to see. Yes, they were open and, yes, they had in-date handheld flares. I was back over to see the inspector in less than a half-hour and currently have the 2014 safety inspection sticker mounted on my cabin window.

While chatting with the inspector, he said that only three boats had passed the inspection up to that point the entire weekend (this was early afternoon on Memorial Day). One was the boat which was inspected just before mine. I think I might have been the fourth boat, once I got in-date flares. Interestingly, the inspector said the overwhelming reason most of the boats had failed was exactly the problem I had – out-of-date flares.

During my initial inspection, a guy drove up and reported having rescued/towed a sunken boat on Big Lake earlier that weekend. The auxiliary man thanked him and told him the report needed to be given to the troopers. Later on during the inspection, the inspector told me about another boat which suffered an explosion and fire within a couple hundred yards of the Big Lake North boat launch earlier that same day. Nobody was hurt but there was significant property damage in both accidents.

Another boater arrived as I was finishing my inspection and when asked if he wanted his boat inspected, agreed. He was interested in the list of required and suggested equipment the USCG Auxiliary uses and when flares were mentioned, stated he didn’t have any at all on board! That inspection never even started — at least while I was there!

I was told of several other boaters who simply refused to allow a safety inspection of their boats. The USCG Auxiliary has no law enforcement authority and does not issue tickets if a boat is found to be out of compliance with federal and state equipment requirements. They are simply trying to educate folks in proper boating equipment requirements and, ultimately, save lives.

I would much rather have an auxiliary member tell me I’m missing something than a trooper or coastguardsman after being boarded for inspection and then be issued a high dollar ticket!

Contact Howard Delo by emailing sports@frontiersman.com.