Coast Guard Towing

Coming from the East Coast, I was surprised to read of the CG towing a 93' Selene into Newport Harbor, Oregon. Generally on the East Coast, they'll rescue you, but not your boat, leaving you to arrange any towing. This boat was anchored outside the Siuslaw Bar.

https://www.tillamookcountypioneer.net/coast-guard-tows-disabled-yacht-to-newport/

Is this due to the lack of available tow services or just generally a practice of the CG on the West Coast? Or is this unusual?

Unusual for the Coasties to tow in the PNW. Never seen it, in fact. About the first thing heard on the VHF in these situations is, 'Will you accept a commercial tow?' Same in BC. Never seen their Coast Guard tow either.

It is very common for CG to tow off of Oregon. Mainly due to the lack of towing resources. With the bars and the dangers associated they don't want good Samaritans trying to tow other boats over the unpredictable bars. I have never heard of anything that big before it has always been smaller fishing boats that I have heard about.

If commercial tow services are available they won't tow unless the vessel is in danger.

tcoop said:

It is very common for CG to tow off of Oregon. Mainly due to the lack of towing resources. With the bars and the dangers associated they don't want good Samaritans trying to tow other boats over the unpredictable bars. I have never heard of anything that big before it has always been smaller fishing boats that I have heard about.

If commercial tow services are available they won't tow unless the vessel is in danger.

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What he said. When you compare it to the east coast, there’s a whole lot of coast off Oregon and Washington, without a lot of ports of call and not a lot of traffic. If a vessel that size founders, there’s also the environmental consequences to consider.

Jim

It appears Seatow has nothing in the area and Boat US has one in Portland and another in Grays Harbor. The Portland location says they'll go 30 miles off shore, but only 50 miles from Portland, so clearly not within their range. So, I don't find anything close enough to tow where this boat was.

Wow, wonder what was the “engine failure”? Pretty sure she is a twin, from what I recall.

BandB said:

It appears Seatow has nothing in the area and Boat US has one in Portland and another in Grays Harbor. The Portland location says they'll go 30 miles off shore, but only 50 miles from Portland, so clearly not within their range. So, I don't find anything close enough to tow where this boat was.

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Seatow must be confused. It’s about 85 miles from Portland to the ocean, West of Astoria. How can they be willing to go 30 miles offshore when they only have a radius of 50 miles from Portland?

Giggitoni said:

Seatow must be confused. It’s about 85 miles from Portland to the ocean, West of Astoria. How can they be willing to go 30 miles offshore when they only have a radius of 50 miles from Portland?

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"That's some catch, that Catch 22!" --Yossarian

Giggitoni said:

Seatow must be confused. It’s about 85 miles from Portland to the ocean, West of Astoria. How can they be willing to go 30 miles offshore when they only have a radius of 50 miles from Portland?

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Either way, they wouldn't cover where this boat was.

It is not as common for the USCG to tow on the East Coast due to the many assistance towers, but they are not prohibited from towing either if circumstances dictate. There is no mandate to save lives but not tow, that is just circumstances.


As to towers seemingly to have goofy distance requirements...it could be because they have multiple but vastly different resources in different locations to even include towable craft that they limit range from the launch site which isn't always at the coastline.


Can't speak to all franchise owners but the two I worked for and many I have met.... you can bet your life on they know what they are doing......

Crusty Chief said:

Wow, wonder what was the “engine failure”? Pretty sure she is a twin, from what I recall.

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Scary, but I towed plenty of twin engine vessels. There are plenty of engine room issues that will stop both engines. There are others that are more boat specific, such as steering casualties, but usually the biggest factor why twins get towed is the captain.

My son is with USCG station Humboldt Bay. They tow all the time, no commercial tow services there and as mentioned above, can be very dangerous at times.

I was once got assistance from USCG. Thank God they were around. I was delivering my boat back home to Pasadena, MD. from Knoxville, TN. Everything was fine till we got bad/dirty fuel in Florida. I was changing Racor's twice a day. Here we are on the last leg of our delivery trip coming out of Norfolk, VA around midnight. Double check the weather make sure no surprises ahead and of we go. Around 4 am. we got very rough seas, wind gusting to 40 knots. I was constantly stayed in contact with USCG. Around 7 am. my stb engine quit on me 45 min. later I lost port engine. Had to call PAN-PAN lost propulsion and drifting towards channel and all commercial traffic. USCG send big boat to tow us to Davidsonville, VA. I can say one thing God Bless this USCG sailors and Thank you. Perfect everything hook up, tow, boarding inspection and most important respect to us and our property. It was not my poor judgement it was unexpected weather change. From 2-3 ft to 5-6 ft. to 12-15 ft. with 7 sec. approach. After we clean the fuel lines and change the filters. We went home without any issues. Thank you VA USCG.

Years ago a group of buddies thought it would be fun to launch our trailer boats out of Santa Barbara and do a couple dives in the Channel Islands. We had a 19' formula pseudo off shore speedboat and the other boat was a 17' open center console with outboard.

Was a bit bumpy on the trip over but did a couple dives, had lunch and a then headed the 25 miles across the channel towards home. The outboard boat flat quit and the collective group was not able to fix the issue. So I figured what the heck i'll tow them back the 25 miles. We got about 15 miles across the channel when it became obvious that we were not going to make it back with the remaining fuel so we dropped the tow and headed back to fuel and return.

I called the coasties to apprise them of the situation and gave them a rough location of the dead boat ( with a crew aboard and a cooler of beer) and gave them a return ETA of 1 hour. The coasties launched a full response mission, with a heli and a mini cutter to " rescue" the lads. This was about 30 miles for them to run and they started towing the boys when we got back to within a couple miles. The boys got concerned for the well being of the center console when the skipper of the cutter decided that balls to the wall was a appropriate speed to tow.



I spoke with the skipper and he stated that they towed due to the fact that the boat represented a hazard to navigation and that had the boat not been in the middle of the shipping lanes they would of just plucked the lads off the boat and waited until a commercial towboat arrived. We tax payers all got to share the bill that day


HOLLYWOOD

I had an engine failure in a Tolly 26 a dozen or so years ago. Just north of Hale Passage. I was drifting and trying to fix problem, when USCG showed up along side, uncalled. After a short conversation and their consensus that I was drifting into shallow water, they offered to tow me to nearest dock, which was the Lummi fuel dock. Their policies, seem to have changed, over the years.

Here they will tow you to safety if there are no other options for you, but once you are in safe waters you are on your own while either you or they find assistance for you. If you are safe where you are, they will leave you there while they attempt to find someone who will assist you. Sea Tow has just opened up services here, most of the time it's either a commercial vessel or another recreational vessel making the tow.

The USCG will tow in our area because we don't have any tow services anywhere around here.




I seem to tow a couple of times a year. It's what boaters do for each other.

As others have stated- in Puget Sound, there are plenty of towers.

Offshore (Neah Bay to Coos Bay) there are few, and they are far between. The CG is very diligent about monitoring radio traffic and rendering aid when no other vessels are available.

Crusty Chief said:

Wow, wonder what was the “engine failure”? Pretty sure she is a twin, from what I recall.

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Likely dirty fuel or some such thing, as that yacht definitely has twin engines (as I remember drooling over the yachtworld listing a time or two )

Would be very interesting to get a full report on the difficulties - especially considering the transoceanic capabilities of the Selene 92.

A friend got a tow by USCG....when they came aboard and he revealed to them that he was a retired Navy Master Chief. One hand washes the other.

The CG has 4 52 foot motor life boats there. Years ago I was on The Victory out of Newport. They have twin GM 6_71 engines with twin 36 inch props.

I've been towed by USCG when my commercial tower refused to come out due to weather.

Back in the early 70's there were a lot of small boat CG stations. most all of them had 40' utility boats, that was primarily what they did was did was retrieve broken down pleasure and commercial fishing boats. The mission seemed to change when the CG transitioned from the treasury dept to home land security. A lot of the small boat stations went away along with the perception of the boating public of what the mission of the CG was and what it has become... I personally miss the "old guard"

The restrictive towing policies came from President Regan's privatization policies, not agency changes.


The transition was Treasury to DOT (1967-2003) to Homeland (post 911)



The stations went away under streamlining and efficiency initiatives both intenally driven and due to budget cuts through the years and the need to channel money to different programs when more modern resources changed area of responsibility coverage.

The CG I joined in 1968 is not the CG I retired from in 1995. 1968 to 1972 CG regular. 1972 to 1995 CG Reserve. 1973 to 2001 ran N.Y. Harbor tugs. My employer was great and kept me on salary while doing CG Reserve time minus CG pay.

What didn't change a lot over those years?

I've been towed by the CCG several times in the 1000 Islands, before I solved my fueling issues. The were delighted to have a task on a lovely day and were very friendly. But never when docked.

jimisbell said:

A friend got a tow by USCG....when they came aboard and he revealed to them that he was a retired Navy Master Chief. One hand washes the other.

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A friend of mine, a retired Navy O-6 whose last command was an aircraft carrier was boarded on his 26 foot sailboat in Perdido Bay.

The "youthful"Bosun-3 asked if he had ever taken any seamanship instruction. My friend allowed he'd picked up a couple tricks in the Navy. Kid suggested he contact the Power Squadron.

psneeld said:

What didn't change a lot over those years?

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1968 to 1995, I went from a year before conception and two before birth to college and had been on my job for 6 years by 1995. I would sure hope in that period of time everything changed. I think that's something I observe on this site sometimes, people upset over change of various types, but change is natural. As to the CG, they have capabilities today they only dreamed of in 1968. They also have responsibilities they couldn't have expected either.

AlaskaProf said:

A friend of mine, a retired Navy O-6 whose last command was an aircraft carrier was boarded on his 26 foot sailboat in Perdido Bay.

The "youthful"Bosun-3 asked if he had ever taken any seamanship instruction. My friend allowed he'd picked up a couple tricks in the Navy. Kid suggested he contact the Power Squadron.

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Nice that your friend didn't embarrass the embarrass the guardsman. Assuming the kid was being friendly and helpful (like all of my interactions with the USCG) it was kind of nice that he was trying to make some constructive suggestions.