NYCHAB III
Veteran Member
Hi All, "Hopefully-not-naive newbie" here with my hopefully not naive question of the week.
While I have been closely following the various "boarding" threads that deal with, basically, how to behave during a boarding, there has not been much said about the "why". Why, exactly, are random boardings occurring? I can understand why the USCG or other local law enforcement agencies would be interested in, for instance, a power boat loaded with beer and young ladies (surely a nuisance will be occurring shortly) or a trawler beating it down the ICW trailing a wake of toilet paper or still cleated to someones dock with, perhaps, a jet ski impaled on his prow - but random boardings? What are they looking for? To see your papers? Is there a thriving trade in stolen trawlers up and down the East Coast?
And to want to root about in your engine room? Really? That's one place I enter only with great reluctance. It's dark, claustrophobic and I'm sure there are some surviving spiders in there that wish me grievous bodily harm.
I also assume that during an on-the-water boarding, you will have your engines running. What happens if the Boarding Officer gets his pant leg or shirt sleeve caught in a fan belt and gets spat out on the other side of the engine. Would this be your fault? Liability?
I do hope there is some rational reason behind a random boarding. What have our trawlering forebears done to incur the wrath of the USCG and others after all that time?
D.
While I have been closely following the various "boarding" threads that deal with, basically, how to behave during a boarding, there has not been much said about the "why". Why, exactly, are random boardings occurring? I can understand why the USCG or other local law enforcement agencies would be interested in, for instance, a power boat loaded with beer and young ladies (surely a nuisance will be occurring shortly) or a trawler beating it down the ICW trailing a wake of toilet paper or still cleated to someones dock with, perhaps, a jet ski impaled on his prow - but random boardings? What are they looking for? To see your papers? Is there a thriving trade in stolen trawlers up and down the East Coast?
And to want to root about in your engine room? Really? That's one place I enter only with great reluctance. It's dark, claustrophobic and I'm sure there are some surviving spiders in there that wish me grievous bodily harm.
I also assume that during an on-the-water boarding, you will have your engines running. What happens if the Boarding Officer gets his pant leg or shirt sleeve caught in a fan belt and gets spat out on the other side of the engine. Would this be your fault? Liability?
I do hope there is some rational reason behind a random boarding. What have our trawlering forebears done to incur the wrath of the USCG and others after all that time?
D.