NYCkayaker 5 boro and the USCG

[Tim Gamble]

I'd like to make one comment on all the USCG crazy rules.

4 or 5 years ago when the first large circumnavigation event was being
planned I argued long and hard, but unsuccessfully, with the organizer NOT
to ask for a CG permit.

My reasoning was that we should be free to run these kind of events
without asking permission to exercise our right to paddle. It is a
dangerous precedent to have to ask for permission, since once you ask they
can say no, or they can put silly unreasonable limits on you.

I learned this lesson long ago at the Downtown Boathouse when planning our
annual race the Harrison St. Regatta. We don't ask for permission, we run
the event safely, and we have up to 75 boats on the water at once and it
all goes just fine.

Now you are seeing some silly unreasonable limits being imposed, and in
the case of motorized escorts you have expensive barriers being put in
your way.

What is next? requirement for a permit for every trip over some arbitrary
number of kayakers? Soon we will end up like the poor bicyclists in
critical mass where the police decide a limit of the number of people on
bikes to constitute a parade. Then when you apply for a permit they say
no, then if you run the event anyway you are breaking the law and they
arrest you. A fun event like critical mass has turned into a civil rights
battle and a pissing contest between the bikers and the cops.

If you run a tour correctly, and don't block commercial traffic, or
require a shutdown of the waterways you shouldn't need a permit, and you
shouldn't ask for one, in my opinion.

---------------
Tim Gamble
917-721-8851