United States Coast Guard

“ Governors Island was managed by the United States Army and the United States Coast Guard for nearly 200 years, but is no longer required for defense or Coast Guard purposes. It provides an excellent opportunity for the public to observe and understand the harbor history, its defense, and its ecology. ”

“ These critical precautions can save lives and help ensure a fulfilling experience. Each year during this week, the United States Coast Guard partners with organizations to educate and inform the public about safe boating. I join them in calling upon Americans to protect themselves and others while boating. ”

“ Perhaps no country ever experienced more sudden and remarkable advantages from any measure of policy than we have derived from the arming for our maritime protection and defense.
We ought without loss of time to lay the foundation for an increase of our Navy to a size sufficient to guard our coast and protect our trade. Such a naval force as it is doubtless in the power of the United States to create and maintain would also afford to them the best means of general defense by facilitating the safe transportation of troops and stores to every part of our extensive coast. ”

“ You might also drop a hint to Captain Starley that will stop all further attempts at salvage operations for a few days. Tell him that I'll arrange to have a Coast Guard cutter guard the locality of the wreck."
"Won't that be rather risky for the cutter?"
"I think not. The gold is gone and there is no reason to apprehend any further danger in that locality, at least for the present."
AT nine o'clock next morning Carnes and Dr. Bird sat in the office of Lieutenant Commander Minden of the United States Coast Guard, listening intently to the history of the alien smuggling case. ”

“ Protection by Law It is unlawful to impair the usefulness of any navigation aid established and maintained by the United States. If any vessel collides with a navigation aid, it is the legal duty of the person in charge of the vessel to report the accident to the nearest U.S. Coast Guard station. ”

“ Under the supervision of the United States Coast Guard, there are today some 158 manned lighthouses in the nation. Another 60 are cared for by other Coast Guard units in the general area. There are hundreds of other lights of varied description that are operated automatically. And, as technology improves, more and more lighthouses are being operated without a full time crew. ”

“ The United States Government naturally turned to the Coast Guard—then known as the Revenue Cutter Service—well assured that whatever was possible in the realm of human courage and skill would be done.
Between the marooned whalers and civilization lay a thousand miles and more of the most fearful road that man has ever had to travel, a road un [204] trod, with cold like to the bitterness of death as its constant state and the howl of the blizzard for its sole companion. ”

“ The Creed of the United States Coast Guardsman
I am proud to be a United States Coast Guardsman.
I revere that long line of expert seamen who by their devotion to duty and sacrifice of self have made it possible for me to be a member of a service honored and respected, in peace and war, throughout the world. ”

“ The guns now mounted require twenty-eight thousand men, if the coast fortifications are to be adequately manned. Relatively to the Nation, it is not now so large as the police force of New York or Chicago relatively to the population of either city. We need more officers; there are not enough to perform the regular army work. It is very important that the officers of the Army should be accustomed to handle their men in masses, as it is also important that the National Guard of the several States should be accustomed to actual field maneuvering, especially in connection with the regulars. ”

“ The Program depends upon the employment of U.S. forces from each branch of the Military Services, including the U.S. Coast Guard. The Program includes both FON operations (i.e., operations that have the primary purpose of challenging excessive maritime claims) and other FON-related activities (i.e., operations that have some other primary purpose, but have a secondary effect of challenging excessive claims) , in order to gain efficiencies in a fiscally-constrained environment. ”

“ Only on the largest scale chart will the actual and charted positions of both wreck and buoy be the same. Where they might overlap, it is the wreck symbol which occupies the exact charted position and the buoy symbol which is offset.
Wreck buoys are required to be placed by the owner of the wreck, but they may be placed by the Coast Guard if the owner is unable to comply with this requirement. In general, privately placed aids are not as reliable as Coast Guard aids. ”

“ This publication, officially known as Commandant Instruction M16672.2d, contains the Inland Navigation Rules enacted in December 1980 and effective on all inland waters of the United States including the Great Lakes, as well as the International Regulations for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea, enacted in 1972 (1972 COLREGS) . Mariners should ensure that they have the updated issue. The Coast Guard also publishes comprehensive user’s manuals for the Loran and GPS navigation systems, Navigation and Vessel Inspection Circulars; and the Chemical Data Guide for Bulk Shipment by Water. ”

“ GMDSS nicely compliments the operation of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Amver system, which tracks participating ships worldwide and directs them as needed to distress incidents. GMDSS and Amver rely on radiotelephone or satellite communications for passing information. But even with normal communications disabled, a properly equipped vessel has every prospect of rapid rescue or aid if it carries a SOLAS-required Emergency Position Indicating Radiobeacon (EPIRB) and a Search and Rescue radar Transponder (SART) . ”

“ To extend radar coverage the length of the traffic lanes in Prince William Sound would require several radars at remote, difficult-to-access sites and an extensive data relay network. As an alternative to radar, the Coast Guard is installing a dependent surveillance system that will require vessels to carry position and identification reporting equipment. The ability to supplement radar with dependent surveillance will bridge the gap in areas where conditions dictate some form of surveillance and where radar coverage is impractical. ”

“ The ships of war before in commission, with the addition of a frigate, have been chiefly employed as a cruising guard to the rights of our coast, and such a disposition has been made of our land forces as was thought to promise the services most appropriate and important. ”

“ Offshore light stations should always be left well off the course whenever searoom permits.
BUOYS 509. Definitions and Types Buoys are floating aids to navigation. They mark channels, indicate shoals and obstructions, and warn the mariner of dangers. Buoys are used where fixed aids would be uneconomical or impractical due to the depth of water. By their color, shape, topmark, number, and light characteristics, buoys indicate to the mariner how to avoid hazards and stay in safe water. The federal buoyage system in the U.S. is maintained by the Coast Guard. ”

“ Efforts to develop a production generation of radar equipment for future port development were initiated. To satisfy the need for immediate radar coverage, redundant military grade Coast Guard shipboard radar transceivers were installed at four Coast Guard light stations along the Admiralty Inlet part of Puget Sound. Combination microwave radio link and radar antenna towers were installed at each site. Radar video and azimuth data, in a format similar to that used with VTS San Francisco, were relayed by broad band video links to the VTC in Seattle. ”

“ The civilian keepers were granted 1 year’s leave each 4 years. Coast Guard personnel now serving at the light serve a year at a time at this isolated location. At the end of his year’s tour each man is transferred to a new duty station.
The reservation on which Cape Sarichef Light is built is 1,845 acres of primeval wilderness. The first lighthouse cost $80,000 to build. The tower has now been rebuilt and incorporated with a loran station.
The 700,000 candlepower, 375-millimeter electric white light is lit for 25 seconds and eclipsed for 5 seconds. There is also a fog horn and a radiobeacon. ”

“ A new lighthouse tower was erected near the old tower in 1855, consisting of a gray granite conical tower, 133 feet above the water, 61⁄2 miles off the coast of Maine.
As Boon Island is a very flat piece of land, well surrounded by ledges, the tower appears at times to be springing up from the sea from a submerged ledge, especially when low clouds are flying. One of the most isolated stations off the Maine coast, it is also one of the most dangerous. ”

“ With every minute the incoming tide ran stronger, washing the struggling men toward shore, where now were burning the welcome beacons of the crews from landward Coast Guard stations. Again and again they tried to launch their surfboats, and as often were beaten back. Now they stood at the edge of the waves, waiting to assist their comrades from the ship.
Ceaselessly the searchlight of the Iroquois played upon the breakers, and on her bridge officers stood with glasses and watched the awful fight. Miraculously the struggling men drove steadily toward the shore. ”

“ We need always to remember that in time of war the Navy is not to be used to defend harbors and sea-coast cities; we should perfect our system of coast fortifications. The only efficient use for the Navy is for offense. The only way in which it can efficiently protect our own coast against the possible action of a foreign navy is by destroying that foreign navy. For defense against a hostile fleet which actually attacks them, the coast cities must depend upon their forts, mines, torpedoes, submarines, and torpedo boats and destroyers. ”

“ In 1889 the Lighthouse Board reported that the shoals forming the continuation of Cape Fear for about 18 miles to the southeast were dreaded by ship masters only a little less than those at Cape Hatteras. The lightship, near the outer extremity of the shoals, warned vessels of danger and gave them a good point of departure, but was not sufficient to insure adequate protection because of the small area lighted by it, and its liability to being set adrift from its moorings during violent storms, at the very time it was most needed. ”

“ The base of the tower is a solid block of concrete and granite, and the tower above is also built of granite blocks. The stone was quarried from granite boulders found on Mad River near Humboldt Bay. Probably the most violent storm experienced at this lighthouse was that of 1923, when huge seas from a northwesterly direction broke on the platform of the tower, 70 feet above water, with such violence as to tear the donkey-engine house from its foundation. Several men have been injured, and several men killed in transferring to this light by small boat. ”

“ In 1877 Congress appropriated $2,000 for protecting the site after the Lighthouse Board had reported 2 years earlier “The base of the tower is very 19 nearly at the same level as the sea, which is but little more than 150 feet distant, the shore being of shifting sand. In a violent hurricane, it is feared, the tower may be undermined.” The Board had asked for $5,000 to protect the site and reported in 1879 that, as it was found “impracticable to build a jetty for $2,000 that can protect the site from the encroachment of the sea, no further action has been taken in the matter.” ”

“ As many of the captains from other ports objected to the system of lighthouse dues, the townsmen petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts for permission to levy tonnage dues, and, beginning August 1, 1774, that court ordered that any vessel over 15 tons was subject to a charge of 6 shillings the first time each year it entered or left Nantucket Harbor. In 1783, the lighthouse was burned to the ground in a third disaster.
The first three lighthouses had been cheaply constructed, but the fourth light, for economy’s sake, was practically nothing but a beacon built even more cheaply. ”

“ As an Active Service force the Coast Guard is far from fulfilling modern fighting requirements, which are so exacting that a man’s efficiency depends upon his being continuously associated with highly technical duties on board ship, and employment in the Coast Guard (even with the arranged periodical training in the Fleet) is found to be inconsistent with these requirements. ”

“ Among all the various arms of government in our nation, no arm is at once less known or more worthy of renown than the Coast Guard. Like the knights of the Table Round, this company of gallant surfmen and sailors is organized and exists almost solely for the protection of others. Though few in numbers, the Coast Guard accomplishes deeds that are mighty. Skill of the highest order, daring incredible, and discipline that is perfect, make a giant of this little service. ”

“ In 1771 the first wooden tower at Portsmouth Harbor was built on a point of land running out into the harbor. This early colonial tower was one of the 12 lighthouses turned over to the Federal Government under the act of August 7, 1789. The original tower was replaced by another wooden tower in 1804. In 1877 this second tower was removed and a cast-iron beacon erected 1,000 feet east of the first station. This was on ground known as Newcastle. In reaching the lighthouse by land one has to pass through the “Old Fort” yard before arriving at the lighthouse reservation. ”

“ One of the most thrilling episodes in the history of the lighthouse occurred on January 28, 1885, when Keeper Marcus A. Hanna saved two crew members of the schooner Australia which had grounded on the ledge near the fog signal station. The two men had taken to the rigging and were coated with ice, unable to move. The captain was drowned as a huge comber washed the deck. Keeper Hanna, securing a heavy iron weight to the end of a stout line, attempted time and again to reach the men with it. ”