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Posted on Tue, Sep. 06, 2005

Coast Guard raids moored harbor vessels

By VIRGINIA HENNESSEY Herald Staff Writer

The Coast Guard boarded and inspected close to 30 vessels, many of them docked, in Monterey Bay over the Labor Day weekend in a operation that raised the eyebrows of some local boaters and the ire of one.

The operation -- conducted in conjunction with the Monterey County Sheriff's Office, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- netted one arrest in Moss Landing Harbor and terminated the voyages of five vessels that were deemed unsafe.

In all, 28 boats, many of them live-aboard vessels that were moored in the harbors, were boarded and 31 citations were issued. One angry boater said Coast Guard officers came aboard his boat in Moss Landing Harbor late Friday citing authority under the Patriot Act.

In an e-mail to The Herald, Lowell Jones of Moss Landing said the Coast Guard did a "blanket boarding" in the harbor, "searching boats, and invading people's privacy at 10:30 p.m. They justified this intrusion by citing the Patriot Act.

"The locals are not happy, and the boating community as a whole has expressed concerns over privacy relating to such dockside boardings of legal live-aboard residents," he wrote.

Coast Guard officials said the operation was not in response to any particular law enforcement report and that search warrants are not required for such inspections.

"It wasn't a drill. But it wasn't in response to any Homeland Security threat we received," said Gabriel Flesher, chief of the Coast Guard's San Francisco division, which oversees Homeland Security issues in the area. "The exercise was developed as a random operation with local law enforcement agencies (and) we have the authority to board dockside."

Lt. Todd Moe of the Coast Guard's Monterey division said the operation was directed at boating safety during the busiest boating weekend of the year and was authorized under maritime law dating to the 1700s, which gives the Coast Guard jurisdiction over federal waters, including waterways that lead to the open seas.

Jon Copley, chief of the Coast Guard's law enforcement division in San Francisco, said he would be "very surprised" if one of the agency's officers cited the Patriot Act.

The U.S. Code allows the Coast Guard to "make inquiries, examinations, inspections, searches, seizures, and arrests upon the high seas and waters over which the United States has jurisdiction, for the prevention, detection, and suppression of violations of laws of the United States. For such purposes, commissioned, warrant, and petty officers may at any time go on board of any vessel subject to the jurisdiction... of the United States, address inquiries to those on board, examine the ship's documents and papers, and examine, inspect, and search the vessel and use all necessary force to compel compliance."

Moe said "99 percent of the feedback" he'd received was positive and that the operation resulted in the safest Labor Day on record on the Monterey Bay. The Coast Guard was called out to only one incident.

Safety violations that were cited included boats lacking floatation and fire-extinguishing devices and proper documentation. Moe said he did not know the identity of the one man who was arrested by the Sheriff's Office possession of marijuana and an illegal weapon. The deputies involved in the arrest were not available on Tuesday.

Harbormasters in Monterey, Moss Landing and Santa Cruz said they were not notified in advance of the operation. Moss Landing Harbormaster Linda McIntyre said she supports the Coast Guard's efforts to improve safety on the bay, but added that she'd never known the agency to do "door-to-door" inspections of docked vessels.

She said she had received complaints by some residents, but heard others praise the guard.

Monterey Harbormaster Steve Scheiblauer said in his 30 years as a harbormaster in Monterey and Santa Cruz, he'd never heard of any law enforcement agency randomly searching vessels being used as homes. Like several other harbormasters, Scheiblauer was under the impression the Coast Guard's blanket boarding authorization applied only to vessels that were underway.

"That is, on the face of it, pretty preposterous. They can board boats when they're underway. But when a boat is tied up, particularly as a residence, I don't think there's any probable cause to go aboard and search. As a random search, that would be very controversial, I would think, among the public."

Kimbra Eldridge, operations manager of the Santa Cruz Harbor, said her agency does not board boats "unless we have a particular cause."

Reports of the Coast Guard's operation also came as a surprise to Eric Endersby, chief harbor patrol officer in Morro Bay Harbor.

"The Coast Guard has the authority to board any vessel that's underway," he said. "But boats in slips are not underway and my understanding was the Coast Guard didn't have authority to board a boat that's tied up in a slip."

"That's a little scary," he added.

Andy Turpin, senior editor at Latitude 38, a widely read sailing magazine in Marin County, said Coast Guard boardings in the San Francisco Bay Area were an "accepted annoyance."

"It's common to be boarded and it's something you have to put up with," he said.

The practice was even more common during the height of the "zero tolerance" drug wars, he said, but even then, the Coast Guard did not randomly board docked boats.

"I have never heard of that happening up here," he said. "Before 9/11, when they had a little more time on their hands, they would come to a marina and offer free safety inspections and give you a sticker to keep you from being boarded on your Sunday sail."

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Virginia Hennessey can be reached at 646-4355 or vhennessey@montereyherald.com