Notes from the water.
Bill Barnes of Fl-22 was looking for crew and coxswains to help him with his Seafair safety patrols so I decided to help. I had not done Seafair in several years so this was almost new. I very sharply picked the year with the record temperatures to help. Bill Houger and Garry Bromwell traded off Coxswain duties.
Read the rest of the entry and see the pictures
Day # 1 Thursday started like all of our patrols, with a daily briefing, well three briefings actually. Briefing # 1 was before leaving the dock at Maidenbauer YC to transit to the main Seafair area. We went over the mission, boat and did a GAR score. Briefing # 2 was from the Coast Guard to all involved ( About 10 Aux. Facilities, 3 Coast Guard 25 ft. Safe Boats and the Coast Guard Law Enforcement Boarding Parties. ) Briefing # 3 was after we had our LE officers on board our boat.
Our job was to help patrol north of the I-90 floating bridge to keep boats clear of the Blue Angles safety box. The box was marked with a line of yellow buoys. We drove back and forth pushing the spectator boats back out of the safety box. And back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth – you sort of get the idea. Not all spectator boats wanted to move back from the buoy line, even with armed Coast Guard officers asking them to move. There was one solution that helped. The Army brought out two LCM Landing Craft and drove them back and forth. For some reason looking at the large bow of a LCM heading straight at them made them move.
All the days were hot, but Thursday was a record breaker in Seattle and real tough on the water. One of the Coast Guard people aboard our boat became overheated and we had to apply wet towels and a small fan to cool him down. He was OK and more medical attention was not needed, he was however feeling a bit off the next day and stayed home to recover the next day. The extra gear the Coast Guard Boarding Parties wore was just like having on an extra jacket.
After the Blue Angles finished the spectator boats were allowed to go under the East High Rise and enter the safety box on the south side of the I-90 floating bridge. Each day it took over an hour for all the spectator boats to clear the East High Rise. All the time watched over by Auxiliary and Coast Guard boats. Tough to keep an armada slowed down when you are outnumbered seemed like 1,000 to 1.
After the spectator boats had all migrated to the party area ( south of the I-90 Floating Bridge and west of the log boom we patrolled the party area for boating safety violations. We did a lot of what I call “catch and release,” we would pull up alongside a boat and have each passenger hold up a PFD, check the capacity plate of the boat, ask if they had a sober designated driver and if all was well let them go. Another enforcement point was no rafting of more than 6 boats and all swimmers need to stay withing 6 feet of their boat. One boat was short two PFD’s but we had been given spares by one of the safety groups so we gave them two of ours and let them continue. Most everyone was good natured about the “catch and release.” A few boats know the drill and started digging up PFD’s as soon as we pulled up along side them, some even were driving around wearing the ugly type II’s and waved at us as we went by.
The Coasties were real popular with the gals. Lots of big waves, can we take your picture do you have a phone number??
Days 2, 3 and 4 went similar with Saturday being the heaviest day. Almost 2 hours for all the boats to transit under the East High Rise. We had two to four Coast Guard LE people on board depending on the day. Some were from the Polar Sea. The Polar Sea is expanding it’s mission abilities by adding LE Boarding Parties to their staff. Some of their people were cross training for LE duties. A polite group all.
Great view for the Blue Angles. We were right under the flight path for some of their low passes. Don’t know the altitude but it was way low and rattled your teeth and hurt the ears.
And so went keeping America safe on the water.
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