NYCkayaker Rules

[bonnie13 at earthlink.net]

Oh, I do like the frivolous turn this is starting to take, but I'm gonna indulge myself in one more bit of my logorrhea/bloggerrhea (ha ha ha). Sort of copying it with slight edits from a back-channel exchange 'cause again, seemed worth saying as long as we're having Le Heavy Safety Discussion. 

There's a full set of equipment requirements & navigation
rules in the same place where I copied the actual wording about the status of strobes:

http://uscgboating.org/safety/fedreqs/equipment.htm

If you aren't already familiar with them, I really think it's worth the time to go through & familiarize yourself with the ones that apply to kayaks - that's your baseline for the rules by which everybody out there has to abide. Somebody writes you a ticket for using a strobe in a non-emergency situation, you can't really say "But I heard that at this event, they said..." - no, what's going to be enforced is what's written on the books. Word of mouth learning is better than nothing, but we just saw demonstrated quite vividly, even different people listening to the same speakers had different understandings of what was said. It's like that telephone game. Or Rashomon. 

Also sounds like a good demonstration of the fact that the folks enforcing the rules are only human like the rest of us - subject to a little confusion when put on the spot about some specific detail they weren't expecting to be quizzed on just like anybody. I was once pulled over by the Harbor Police around dusk & told that it was illegal for kayaks  to be out after dark. I knew the regulation they were thinking of (NYC parks kayak launch rules prohibit launching or landing after dark), but since I was closing  in on the barge & about a minute from being done paddling, I didn't debate the point with them. In that case, though, it was REALLY nice to know enough of the local regulations to know why these guys might be confused.

Now, anybody hasn't heard about the fellow who got tired of being cold during winter paddles & built a stove in his kayak & is curious about how it worked out, just let me know back-channel! ;D