Petersburg’s public safety advisory board wants the state of Alaska to initiate a safety standard for motorized rental boats.
At a meeting in mid-September, board members said lodges near town let tourists use skiffs without making sure they know what they’re doing.
Mark Tucillo, the board’s vice chair, said he doesn’t want people to die because they don’t know how to operate a boat.
“I think it’s the right thing to do,” Tucillo said. “To say ‘You should have training before you get in a watercraft and go off on your own in Southeast Alaska.” It’s telling that there’s only five states that don’t require this.”
In most states, people have to earn some sort of certification or take a safety class before renting a boat. Alaska is one of five states with no such requirement. The other four – Arizona, Idaho, South Dakota and Wyoming – are landlocked.
Currents near Petersburg are tricky, and tides are sometimes upwards of 22 feet. Board members said giving skiffs to inexperienced boaters is a bad idea since they may fall overboard, end up stranded, lost – or worse.
The problem may be specific to Petersburg. In other Alaska coastal communities like Sitka, Homer and Kodiak, lodge guests aren’t often allowed to take out skiffs on their own. Their boat trips are usually chartered.
Most of the board members agreed that tourists should be required to complete a boating safety course. But there are problems with enforcement. Who would be in charge of making sure the boaters had complied? Would they be checked before getting in the boat, or only if there was an incident? It’s also a problem of jurisdiction. The lodges are miles away from Petersburg, some of them across the water on different islands. If the municipal government takes on the issue, the police force would be in charge of making sure lodges follow the rules.
Board member John Havrilek said that won’t work.
“The only way we can enforce it is to have a police officer come and give them a fine if there’s a problem and we don’t have that kind of numbers of people to do that,” Havrilek said.
And Alaska State Troopers and the U.S. Coast Guard may rescue boaters, but they don’t enforce municipal code.
Petersburg’s board decided a state response makes the most sense. Members voted unanimously to write a letter to the Alaska Office of Boater Safety, asking the state to require that boat renters show proof they’ve completed a boater safety program. The state office doesn’t have regulatory or enforcement power, but it can recommend action to agencies and lawmakers.
Board members want the safety standard to apply to motorized watercraft renters – who are usually tourists. Petersburg Emergency Services Director Aaron Hankins said locals typically know what they’re doing.
“If you grew up here and you have your own vessel, or you move here and get your own vessel, you’re acquainted with someone else who takes you out and shows you all that stuff,” he said. “The resources are here in town. This is for the out of state people who come in and think, ‘Oh yeah, it’s just like the lake back home,’ and go out and get into trouble.”
The draft letter will be brought back to the board before it’s sent to the Office of Boater Safety. The meeting to review the letter had not been scheduled by last week.