Should the US contract out some , or all, of the maintenance of aids to navigation to local workboats, as is done in some other countries?
Would that save money?
Would that provide steady recession proof work and jobs for mariners?
Would that free up USCG resources for anti-immigration, anti-drug trafficking, antiterrorism work?
Or more likely just not maintain them at all given current events.
(there are a couple that ended up 90 degrees to the correct orientation I went out and put my own reflector tape on so I could see them at night, maybe I should be billing for that!)
On another note, given we all have GPS now the unlit ones are kind of an annoyance at night anyway.
Save money? Maybe.
But it would be done a lot faster, that’s for sure.
If no maintenance is carried out wouldn’t there be a lot more of the “unlit” NavAids soon?
Why yes there would!
That is by no means a given, depending on who is doing it.
Have you tried to get the Coast Guard to do anything lately?
Our Sea Buoy was extinguished. They finally replace the bulb, and it flashed the wrong pattern for almost a year before they finally went out and fixed it.
They did lose my documentation paperwork twice now, so there is that.
To your point looking at Thimble Shoal channel this morning. NOAA charts it, USCE surveys the dredged portion. Coast Guard marks the channel, NOAA sets weather buoys. State has a few out there too. Coast guard patrols the area, local law enforcement does too, some dual enforcement depending on the offense other items specialized. Fisheries enforcement can be state with different officers sport vs commercial or federal depending on the species. Not going into licensing another multiple agency mess.
Guess who’s paying for all this
A lot more is involved than changing a lamp (light bulb). Aids not on shore power and buoys are solar powered now. For shore aids you have to make and replace day boards. Large heavy battery banks have to be swapped out on schedule. Chain and synthetic moorings have to be hauled aboard and inspected an replaced if needed. Anything metal in salt water has to be suspect to deterioration and replace as needed. the deck space required to haul a buoy and mooring is sometimes large. Winches, cranes and booms are required to perform these tasks. They have to be done on schedule and outages must be tended to in a reasonable amount of time.
There is much more to tending ATON. Leave it to the pro’s.
JMHO
You mean leave it to the professional commercial mariners, like they do in the UK?
Yes, I think that would be a good idea.
I could see the financial incentive to damage the aids to navigation if their replacement was done by hired companies. Just saying.
Is that a problem in the UK and other places where private companies service the aids?
The Coast Guard had a major personnel shortage for awhile. Trying to do many things and doing them well when you don’t have enough “warm bodies” isn’t easy. Patrols and other duties had to be curtailed. Do you focus on A&N at the expense of SAR? Being the “red-headed step-child” of the military isn’t easy. The “Queen of the Fleet”, the Smilax, still in service, was built in 1944, and still carrying out her duty,
Who’s going to administer the hundreds, (maybe thousands?) of contracts with said local workboats. If recent reporting is to be believed, every time there’s a new government contract there’s likely to be inefficiency and FWA, and you’re suggesting turning one single responsible organization into a decentralized group of hundreds of mariner contracts?
You are likely correct that local mariners with a vested interest in functional navaids would do it better and more timely. But they’d have to be paid an acceptable rate to cover their time, fuel, and overhead, which seems unlikely to be less than that of a lowly CG Petty Officer.
Maybe instead of contracts, just straight delegation of responsibility to local pilot associations and port authorities? Keeps costs closer to the end user. If the CG sectors just had to spotcheck instead of maintain it could save money.
Who do you think tells the Sectors that shit needs to be fixed? I assure you the CG doesn’t show up to fix anything without already being told it’s broken. Again, and again, and again, and again……
Just for reference, the UK has about 11’000 aids and the US has over 50’000.
That is correct:
To fulfill this statutory duty, Trinity House works with local ports and harbours to inspect and audit over 11,000 local aids to navigation annually.
Source: https://www.trinityhouse.co.uk/mariners-information/local-aids-to-navigation
PS> The UK Coast Guard guard the UK coast and territorial waters, incl. the UK SAR zone of responsibility: https://hmcoastguard.uk/
They do not get involved in maintaining Aids to Navigation, nor are they performing operations that would normally fall under the Royal Navy’ or Custom’s responsibility.
The Coast Guard is a BRANCH under the Maritime and Coastguard Agency:
PS> MCA is an executive agency, sponsored by the Department for Transport.
They are UK’s civilian Maritime Authority per IMO definition.
The US Aids to Navigation System is a bit different:
PS> That is just the first few lines of a long document.
Source: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2012-title33-vol1/pdf/CFR-2012-title33-vol1-chapI-subchapC.pdf
You would probably look for bids for regional operators, say the entire state of New Jersey. You couldn’t possibly keep up with "Jim does Cape May, his uncle does the ICW to Barnegat, Bill and Sue do the Raritan River, Charlie does Egg Harbor, etc, etc. "