LONG BEACH - A 51-foot Coast Guard volunteer boat ran aground Saturday while on patrol in Long Beach Harbor, a Coast Guard official said.
The Moonlight Express, a pleasure vessel, ran aground near Island Grissom about 10:25 a.m. while conducting a Coast Guard Auxiliary patrol, said Lt. Andrew Munoz of the Coast Guard.
It looks like they avoided violating the second rule of Auxie mishaps.
The First Rule is to avoid mishaps to begin with.
The Second Rule is if you cannot avoid the mishap then at least remove the sign boards and ensign before the pix is taken.
Hard to avoid the media when you start calling in the fire department to haul you off.
Second, I don't know if I would start de-auxifying my boat until after the CG checked it out -- might risk getting denied compensation for not having the boat decked out properly.
"Auxiliary members must undergo a rigorous qualification process equal to that of the active duty Coast Guard in order to drive their own private boats to conduct safety patrols for the Coast Guard Auxiliary," Munoz said.
It was good of LT Munoz to tell that to the reporter.
I kid you not. When he got back from Alaska he showed everyone a photo of his boat sitting high and dry after running aground. In all due respect, he is an active participant in Operations. That is why the Coasties will do whatever they can to help refloat the vessel. Payback of the good kind.
Incidentally, what knee jerk reaction where you expecting, FL?
The typical reaction of the CG to just one Auxie doing one thing bad enough or public enough for the CG to come all unglued and start posting additional requirements on the Aux.
Some classic examples of overkill in the past:
1. The entire Air Program being shut down for a year and a whole plane load of additional requirements being imposed on the Aux because one known Rogue Pilot managed to get himself and his observer killed.
2. The new maintenance thing for Aux Air, which is decimating the program, because one engine caught fire with an Adm on board.
Going way back - the entire ban on entering the water dates back to a 1980s era death in the boat crew program. It happened in Texas. I still haven't been able to discover the Auxies names but that one incident is the only deaths I have been able to find in the boat crew program. It lead to the Do Not Enter The Water Prohibition and the Do Not Enter The Surf Zone Prohibition.
There are more examples but I think those make the point. One bad thing and the CG tends to over react. Unless that boat floats off with the tide, the CG is going to spend a pretty penny or two refloating it. And those kinds of expenditures are certain to generate even more "Thou Shalt Nots".
Seeing as how getting grounded is something that happens to CG boats and even cutters every so often, I would hope a more reasonable approach would be taken.
This guy should have his POMS access denied. What will probably happen, however, is an addendum to the OPS workshop/TCT refresher on the assumption that we are all incompetent. More democratic that way
I wonder if they will post what speed he was doing. That looks like a typical sandbar he is on. If he was going at 'observe and report' speed he would have just bumped it. He either wouldn't have grounded or he would have been able to get himself off.
Given how far up on it he appears, it looks like he was going along at a pretty good clip.
It would also be interesting to know if the sand bar is charted and/or the subject of a Marine VHF announcement.
The typical reaction of the CG to just one Auxie doing one thing bad enough or public enough for the CG to come all unglued and start posting additional requirements on the Aux.
Boy, ain't that the truth. <G>.
Every time somebody in our AOR makes a minor mistake there are buckets of blame and condemnation going in every direction and a whole compliment of new guidelines to prevent us embarrassing ourselves (or more typically embarrassing the local Aux OPS department).
I am all for post-incident evaluations and constructive criticism and even refresher training (if indicated). But in the boat game, "SH*T HAPPENS!). We aren't perfect. We make mistakes. Auxiliary immediately goes into maximum CYA mode.
It is the ultimate refuge of a true bureaucrat to add even more CYA verbiage to already choking regulations.
When he went aground in Alaska he was not on patrol just touring. The place he ran aground is right near Oil Island Grissom in Long Beach harbor. This is the same oil island that shows up sometimes in the TV show, CSI Miami, which is of course, filmed entirely in southern California, at the request (demand) of it's star, David Caruso.
Originally posted by FL51D7: Given how far up on it he appears, it looks like he was going along at a pretty good clip.
Looking at the picture, I didn't think speed at all - it looks like the bozo picked high tide as the time to pull this stunt, then the tide went out to leave him displayed in all his glory. That is one heck of an expensive boat to be pulling stunts like this in.
