Saquatucket Harbour 41:40N 70:04W
Millybrown
Mark Hillmann
Mon 3 Nov 2008 02:18
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Like Falmouth, this is another tiny harbour.
Saquatucket, what a good name, is out on Cape Cod. A fishing harbour with
posh residential housing, it is also a retirement area. The man
who signed me in retired from his full time job when the Germans bought the
company. He does voluntary environmental work now, but is also part time
assistant harbourmaster.
One of the things he does, is go out in the
harbourmaster's launch to give assistance. He did not say "rescue", but
there will certainly be an overlap. It was on the news that a fishing boat
(a dragger - what we would call a trawler?) sank near where I was two
days ago. By the time the helicopter and Coastguard vessel arrived
the crew of three had been taken off by another fishing boat. Perhaps this
explains the large number of Coastguard vessels. They do rescues: They are
not all busy intercepting Palestinians.
Last time I saw the coastguards in the UK
they boarded me from a launch in the Scillies. When I asked why
they were on a local boat company launch, not a
proper coastguard one, they laughed and said theirs had all been
sold. Rescues in the UK are done by the RNLI, in specialist
inshore rescue or all weather boats. At Maryport, where the RNLI does not
provide a boat, fundraising has provided the "Maryport Rescue Boat".
This is a specialist boat to the same specification as an RNLI inshore
boat and crewed in the same way, by local
volunteers.
There may be a lot of coastguard launches over
here, but it surely cannot compare with the coverage by the RNLI in the UK? I would expect our crews, generally
with enormous seagoing experience, but also local to the areas they cover,
to be a match for the US full time crews covering bigger
areas.
Their coastguard launches do not look like the
RNLI all weather boats. They look more like their lobster boats:
High speed ones, that we would call harbour
launches. When I ask what the lobster boats do in bad weather, they
say they have big engines and get into harbour quick. Our normal
fishing boats expect to ride out gales at sea and our all weather lifeboats go
out in almost any weather.
The weather is different over here too. The
winds are very variable, but with much offshore wind giving small waves.
There seems (in my brief experience) to be a clear three or four day
cycle. Good weather, with light winds, lasts a long time, but bad weather
comes as a "storm" lasting only a few
days.
Should I conclude that the lobster boats and
Coastguard rescue boats are adapted to the conditions here, the same as our
fishing boats and lifeboats suit our conditions? Or are our boats just
better?
Milly Brown was built as a cruiser racer, but
has a reputation as a good heavy weather boat: Which is why I bought
her. Iceland buys second hand RNLI boats, not New England coastguard boats. They need to do rescues in bad weather
as well.
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