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Sea Kayaks Techniques Bulletin Board
Re: Coastal vs. Inland
Posted By: Brian Nystrom In Response To: Coastal vs. Inland (Shawn Baker)
Date: Monday, 2 August 2004, at 7:28 p.m.
: No, there is only one set of regulations for the USCG.
True. I never said otherwise.
: There may be different regulations for NH Inland and for coastal (colregs)
: waters.That's what I said.
: There may be different interpretations (all but one would be incorrect) of
: the colregs among Coasties in different jurisdictions....but there is only
: one set of regulations.True again. It's pretty obvious that some CG units take a more pragmatic approach to the regs than others. The one we met with was definitely that way. They were more interested in results than in enforcing the letter of the regs.
: But what this points to....any law that is difficult to enforce is a bad law!
: If many of the enforcement personnel don't even understand it, how can it
: be consistently enforced?In this particular case, it was CLEARLY NOT a matter of not understanding the regs. It was a matter of doing whatever was reasonable to make kayakers safer through increased visibility to other boaters and, if need be, rescuers. As a paddler, I don't see anything wrong with that, particularly in areas that are primarily frequented by recreational boaters of all types, vs. ferries and other commercial traffic.
: But until it changes, the law is the law is the law.
And like all laws, it's subject to the interpretation and the level of enforcement that the appropriate agencies choose. Personally, if I was going to do any significant amount of night paddling in an area with a lot of recreational power/sail boat traffic, I'd choose to exceed the regs and err on the side of increased visibility, within the limits of not causing false alarms (as the CG unit recommended). I'm not trying to convince anyone that this is the appropriate thing to do, but it would be MY choice.
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