The remnants of Hurricane Ida swept through the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula on Thursday and Friday of last week. Winds were greater than expected, rain flooded areas, tides higher than normal were experienced all along the coast. What were the damages? To quickly respond to recreational and boating safety in the area, the Coast Guard Station at Milford Haven put in a call to Flotilla 33 to assist in covering the area to assess damage done by the storm.

Flotilla members responded at once and were out during the weekend to patrol the Chesapeake Bay and all the creeks and rivers from the Little Wicomico to Stingray Point. Their mission was to review all the Aids to Navigation for damage, look for hazards to navigation that might seriously damage boats and search for boats and docks adrift.

“Aids to Navigation are the highway markers of the rivers,” commented Jim Thomas, Coxswain. “Without them, boaters unfamiliar with the local area would not know the areas to avoid, thus risking their lives and property. During our patrols, we also found large logs and trees floating in main channels. Those too big to bring onboard our boats were called into the Coast Guard and warnings were broadcast on Marine Channel 16.”

“We were preparing for this even while the storm was still in the area,” said Wally Dawson, Flotilla Commander. “We had crew and boats assigned to specific areas so we could cover the area quickly and efficiently as soon as the storm was over.”

Photos courtesy of Claudia Kent Leonard

by: Sam Marshall
We sailors all have had experiences with inconsiderate power boaters who cross the bow when passing behind would be far smoother for the sailboat, and some who just delight in giving a sailboat a big wake to plow through. We can't change such intentional rudeness by such boors, unless real damage or injury is caused. Thankfully, those extreme incidents are rare.

But is the shoe on the other foot? I chartered a fishing boat this summer and asked the affable skipper if he had been treated unfairly by sailboats. His short answer surprised me: “All the time!” He went on to cite numerous incidences where his fishing operations were really impaired by sailboaters. For example, he uses outriggers when trolling and their presence is pretty obvious to anyone paying attention. But he said that all too often sailboats simply come so close that he has to steer away to avoid getting his lines fouled. And on many occasions a sailboat had taken the right-of-way (sanctified by the rules of the road) and passed ahead, only to tack across the bow, causing the power boat to yield a second time. Or the sailboat will tack and take a new course just to “follow the wind” for no reason apparent to the power boater. Or a sailboat may insist on taking the dead center of a channel when it's not really necessary.

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