Marine Patrol

bilproject · 07-22-2015, 11:09 AM

It would seem that some pontoon boat owners think docking lights are headlights. Saturday night I watched 3 pontoon boats come up from Flashing buoy 3 running with docking lights on all the way till they passed my house by the mail dock on Bear. The last one at 11:30 PM was blasting a stereo and woke us up or I would have never known it was there. Those lights blind other boaters heading toward the offender and it is illegal to be underway with docking lights on. Perhaps this is why the boat was stopped. I see many boats stopped between my house and Shep Browns and in most cases it's out of date registrations, running lights out, clearly overloaded boat, or reckless operation. The MP always run down the boat quickly with lights on and siren if the boat does not respond at once. Nothing different than a police car on land would do. I think they do a great job and by what I see on a weekend I only wish there were more of them. Maybe if they ticketed the large sail boats and cabin cruisers moored in the Gilford area that have 3 year expired registrations they could hire a few more officers. I'm sure the fee for a 35 or 40 foot boat is quite high.

07-22-2015, 11:09 AM	#18
bilproject Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Bear Island/Fort Myers, Fla Posts: 231 Blog Entries: 1 Thanks: 1 Thanked 59 Times in 41 Posts	pontoons riding with Docking lights on It would seem that some pontoon boat owners think docking lights are headlights. Saturday night I watched 3 pontoon boats come up from Flashing buoy 3 running with docking lights on all the way till they passed my house by the mail dock on Bear. The last one at 11:30 PM was blasting a stereo and woke us up or I would have never known it was there. Those lights blind other boaters heading toward the offender and it is illegal to be underway with docking lights on. Perhaps this is why the boat was stopped. I see many boats stopped between my house and Shep Browns and in most cases it's out of date registrations, running lights out, clearly overloaded boat, or reckless operation. The MP always run down the boat quickly with lights on and siren if the boat does not respond at once. Nothing different than a police car on land would do. I think they do a great job and by what I see on a weekend I only wish there were more of them. Maybe if they ticketed the large sail boats and cabin cruisers moored in the Gilford area that have 3 year expired registrations they could hire a few more officers. I'm sure the fee for a 35 or 40 foot boat is quite high.