TOPIC:

I opted to have a voluntary, free Coast Guard inspection of my boat just for my own piece of mind. I am good about making sure I have everything required and figured I was all set. for the most part I was good but found out that it is now mandatory starting this year that BOTH battery posts MUST have the guard caps on them. Also my fire extinguisher was good but the inspector told me there is a recall on a bunch of the Kidde fire extinguishers and I should see if mine was part of it - as of now it appears they are sending me a replacement because mine was part of it. Also he gave me a bunch of other good info. I moved to the emergency strobe this year but asked about keeping expired flares on the boat and he actually recommends it and said there are no issues with have expired flares as long as you have non-expired or the strobe. He was super friendly and we stood around BS'ing for a while after he was done. He is one of the CG pilots so had some interesting insight on what makes it easier to spot people in the water from the air.

Anyways the boat is now marked as USCG inspected which gives me that much more piece of mind when I am on the water and if the CG stops me. Well worth the hour out of my day (there was a lot of BSing in that hour).

We’re did you get your free inspection?

Fish wrote:

We’re did you get your free inspection?

I signed up at the link below. I marked I could tow my boat to them but the inspector was not far from my house, so he came to my garage and did it right there.

wow.uscgaux.info/content.php?unit=V-DEPT&category=i-want-a-vsc

Thanks

There was a young man at the Portage launch last year offering inspections, I'm assuming he was CG Auxiliary or some such. It was good to get another set of eyes on the boat, I had a couple of minor issues and got the same information on the fire extinguisher.

Thanks for the Info

Bruce

Thanks for posting Ed. I just bought new batteries and I don’t have a cap on the negative side so I’ll get that done. Also I went to Kidde’s website and received 3 new extinguishers for free to replace one in my garage and 2 in my boat. They do want the old ones back so keep that in mind. They send the necessary shipping documents with the new replacement.