From the Boathouse: Coast Guard makes big strides in its 225 years

Ahoy, and happy birthday to the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard celebrated its 225th anniversary on Tuesday. President George Washington signed the Tariff Act on the same date in 1790, thus establishing the United States Revenue Cutter Service, also referred to as the Revenue Marine. Additionally, the Tariff Act allowed Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton to build the first 10 Revenue cutters.

The first ship was the Vigilant, which was launched in March 1791 to patrol New York Harbor. That was immediately followed by the launching of the Active in April to guard the Chesapeake River. The remaining eight ships were launched between 1791 and 1793, and these vessels covered the waterways in various locations including Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia.

These were small cutters by today’s standards and by design with only a single mast. However, the ships had a bowsprit, gaffed mainsail, topsails and jibs and might hoist a staysail too. The vessels were roughly 50 feet long with a 25-foot beam and an average draft of 6 1/2 feet that allowed sailing on shallower inland waters. Each ship cost about $1,000, or about $25,000 in today’s dollars.

Keep in mind that that boats built in the earlier centuries to travel the world’s oceans were small. In the 1400s, Christopher Columbus sailed the seas with the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. Columbus skippered the largest of the three, the Santa Maria.

The Nina was only 50 feet long with a 15.9-foot beam, while the 56-foot-long Pinta with her 17.6-foot beam was the second largest. The Santa Maria was 62 feet long with an 18-foot beam.

I digress.

The Revenue Cutter Service continued its mission until merging with the U.S. Life-Saving Service in 1915 to formally be known as the U.S. Coast Guard by an act of Congress. Today, the Coast Guard operates under the Department of Homeland Security, protecting our 95,000 miles of coastline and national defense around the world.

So happy birthday, Coast Guard, and special wishes to the crew of our locally based 87-foot Coast Guard cutter Narwhal, which has been stationed in Newport Harbor since 2001.

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Tip of the week: Copper is once again on the radar of the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board, and boats are the target because copper is being used in the bottom paints. Copper has properties that help rid boat hulls of marine growth.

So copper is bad for the aquatic environment and yet perfectly fine for humans to use in everyday life on land?

I am curious to see empirical data that ties all copper in the harbor directly to the boats since urban runoff dumps so much pollution in harbors up and down the state, including Avalon harbor.

A news release titled “New Scientific Work Raises Questions on Copper Rules” starts, “A scientific presentation given in November of this year (2011) by the University of San Diego and Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command at The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in Boston raises serious questions about the facts upon which regional and statewide actions are being taken that restrict the use of copper-based anti-fouling surfaces on boat hulls.”

This report is a thorough and a robust study of toxicity of water column samples, and the conclusions clearly rebuke much of the popular dialogue regarding copper and its toxicity. I suggest that if copper is so toxic, we need to ban its use on land as well. For example: copper roofs, copper rain gutters, copper weather vanes, copper pennies thrown into the water for luck, copper outdoor lights, copper mailboxes, copper Cupolas, and the list goes on.

All these copper uses will leach copper into the waterways. You better think twice about drinking the water out of your home’s faucets because your home’s plumbing is — wait for it — copper.

As always, just keep an eye to the weather for any changes. Please be boat smart and boat safe. Lastly, please boat responsibly and look behind you before you turn the wheel at the helm.

The original boating program, “Boathouse TV & Radio Shows,” has stretched from coast to coast for more than two decades. See the details at boathousetv.com, facebook.com/boathouseradio and twitter.com/boathouseradio.

Safe Voyages!

MIKE WHITEHEAD is a boating columnist for the Huntington Beach Independent. Send marine-related thoughts and story suggestions to [email protected] or go to boathousetv.com.