Mariners Urged To Follow Safety Procedures
Following an incident this past weekend in which both the Bermuda Marine Police and the U.S Coast Guard was called out to look for two local mariners, Bermuda Maritime Operations Centre has stressed “the need for all mariners to keep a listening watch on VHF CH16 once out on the water and to ensure that proper marine safety equipment is carried onboard before venturing to sea.
The follows after an incident last week which saw the Police Marine unit rescue two boaters, after private boats were said to have transited through the distress area without responding to any of Bermuda Radio’s calls for assistance on VHF Channel 16.
The full statement from Bermuda Maritime Operations Centre is below:
At 11:07am Saturday 2nd July, Bermuda Maritime Operations Centre received a call from concerned family members of two persons onboard power craft ‘Walk Tall’, reportedly overdue from a fishing trip the night before (Friday night).
The 21 foot power craft with 2 persons onboard was believed to have proceeded offshore and had indicated to family members their intention to return early Saturday morning.
Approximately nine hours later, concerned family members contacted the Maritime Operations Centre to report the vessel overdue.
Bermuda Radio commenced call outs to the vessel via Marine VHF Radio while also making unsuccessful attempts to contact either of the two crew onboard via cellular telephone, which were now believed to be out of range.
Further calls were made to family members while port and harbour checks were conducted by the Marine Police.
Following preliminary communications, harbour & moorings checks with negative results, Bermuda Radio commenced Urgent Marine Safety Information broadcasts concerning the overdue vessel. Marine Police boats were tasked to the last known position and carried out an extensive search of the area without sighting the overdue vessel.
At 4 pm, following extensive checks and calls via Radio, port & moorings checks & an offshore search by Marine Police, assistance was requested from the Rescue Coordination Centre in Norfolk, Virginia, for a fixed wing aircraft (C-130) to commence a larger offshore search, as the vessel was now believed to be possibly disabled and drifting further offshore.
Local searches of ports, moorings & offshore waters continued while attempts were made to establish communication with the vessel via VHF Radio or Cellular telephone. The U.S. Coastguard aircraft now airborne to Bermuda had two hours search time on scene before returning to Elizabeth City, North Carolina.
At 6pm contact was finally established with the overdue craft ‘Walk Tall’ who reported their safe arrival back at Jews Bay. Bermuda Radio informed the crew of the exhaustive search efforts that had been ongoing over the last seven hours and of the need to inform family members or Bermuda Radio when deciding to stay out fishing for longer than anticipated, and of the crucial need to also keep a good listening watch on VHF Channel 16. All marine & air assets involved in the search were stood down.
It must be stressed the efforts and risks placed to the various parties tasked with the search for this vessel, including the use of resources taken from other potential incidents; the lack of a proper float plan (Details of trip or any updates to anticipated time back ashore) with family or Bermuda Radio; and the vessels failure to maintain a proper VHF listening watch on Channel 16 exacerbated this incident.
At 12:09 pm yesterday, Bermuda Maritime Operations Centre had yet another incident involving a power craft broken down and unsure of their exact position.
There was no VHF Radio onboard which would have allowed Bermuda Radio to pin-point the exact position of this vessel.
Bermuda Maritime Operations Centre would like to emphasize the need for all mariners to keep a listening watch on VHF CH16 once out on the water and to ensure that proper marine safety equipment is carried onboard before venturing to sea.
Sounds fishy to me. If you don’t want someone to know where you are ( with all this new technoligy) keep it off (VHF).
Send the SAR bill to the fishermen. Why should the US taxpayer, or anyone else for that matter, pay for the thousands per hour a SAR costs when all that was needed was to pick up a microphone & notify Harbour Radio?
In this day and age, is it not an offence to be without proper communications equipment? this is ridiculous….i fish and would hate to know that my death was attributed to lack of proper life saving equipment. if you wanna fish – get the gear first – remain safe and catch the fish second!!
ppl r makin 2 big a deal out of dis! sumtimes GUYZ jus need 2 get away, u kno? 4 sum ppl, its as simple as crackin a cold berr n smokin a GERT spliff wif ya Uncle Susan, but otha ppl have more complcated needz when it comes 2 relaxin…
1 time bout three yerrs back, my worst bredren Insanity-Toes (i mean YA he wuz mug, but a bedren is a bedren is a bedren, u kno?) wuz complainin 2 me bout how TIRED of a week he’d bin havin at work. Apparintly his boss up de fishin docks had started 2 make him eat a peace of erry raw fish he caught so that he n de otha managers culd make bets on when chaboy wuz going 2 yerp. When Insanity-Toes tried 2 complain, de boss showd him d contract he had sined, n it turns out he had agreed 2 do it…he ended up catchin Mug Fish Disease like 78 times in 1 yerr. NE WAYZ, he told me: “Clafe, u know wut?” n I wuz like “WUT, bie?” n he said “I think I need 2 get away 4 a while, u kno?” n I said “not reely, Insanity-Toes, but um scard of u so I’ll jus agree wif u ne wayz.” Next day, chaboy DROPPD OFF D MAP! 4 WEEKS N WEEKS HE WUZ MISSIN! HIS MUMMA WUZ CRYIN, HIS DEDDY WUZ SHOUTIN, HIS AUNTIE WUZ DOIN JUMPIN JACKS (she had a condishin where she had 2 do jumpin jacks erry time she wuz upset or else she wuld hav a hart attack). When he finlly came back, guyz were like “Insanity-Toes, where d FLEP were u dun? GUYZ were worried as a Jook-Jook bird!” TURNS OUT chaboy had jus gotten a shovel n started diggin a MASSIVE hole up Tom Moore’s jungle, n then jus sat in it 4 like 23 days eatin cheese curls n singin a song about steam locomotives he lerned up Elliot back n d day…said it wuz d most peeceful, relaxin thing he had eva done in his life! After dat, he went back 2 work, n happily participated in d Fish-Yerp game til his contract expired, den he went in 2 early retirment.
Wut um sayin is we have NO RIGHT 2 interfere in dese 2 fishermen’s bizness! THEY DIDNT AX 2 BE SAVED, ITS NOT THERE FAULT DAT GUYZ WASTED SO MUCH MONEY N RESOURCES FINDIN THEM. LEAVE PPL BE, FOR FLEP’S SAKE!!! WAKE UP PPL!!!!!!!
Clafe I can’t stop laughing!!! Every time I read Bernews I always look out for your comments because you are hilarious!!! Keep them coming please!
If you are stupid enough to go out on the water without the required equipment, then you should be forced to foot the bill for the search and rescue! We cant drive a car or bike legally without a license, so why is it that I can go and buy a boat and go out without any training?
I always thought it was a requirement that if you were going out past Hog Fish Beacon/Dockyard line – ie into open water – that one has to have a VHF/Flares on board along with the normal lifejackets/oar/anchor. Guess not. Daft and dumb.
Must admit Clafe has some strange rallahteeves.. His cousin Sock Ruk steall yoozazz dee five pahnd fybir line wen fishihn….too cambalz soop tehinz ann yoo kan keap hin kuntek wiff ppls asssure….yoo cann ewan put sum axtra hookz horn dee lyne ( detz how dee parrtee lyne waz hinwented) yoo tal um Clafe….maybee nax veek yoo’l tal um bowt bredren Davaonshire Deek ann how hee sayvaid dee slippery dik frum hacksteensheon….detz rite……..
The ocean has no respect of persons & safey equipment should be used properly. There have been many lives taken over the past years and many families have been left hurting. Until you experience a situation like this you would not know what it feels like so be respectful of your comments.
To whom are you refering to “Peace”.
Lighten up, guy…Geez.
Yes fine them for the resources used!
to be honest i dont see how we can fine someone for simple ignorance? They forgot to check in with their family, and who knows what happened to radio calls or phone.. perhaps radio was off or on another channel??
nothing here is criminal… they did not make a false claim for the help.. they didnt even do anything overly dangerous to warrant the search..
simple case of miscommunication on their part… stupid but not really deserving of all these calls for fines and punishment…