THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601210182
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C13 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BOB HUTCHINSON
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
When you charter a boat for a day of fishing, you're trusting your life to a person you may not know.
You may be paying $1,000 or more to put your well-being into the hands of a man (or woman) who may be drunk, suffering from a hangover or even strung out on drugs. Or a convicted criminal.
The skipper may have lost his license to drive a car because of a drunken-driving conviction or may have been convicted of child molestation.
You have no way of knowing.
Once that skipper pays the appropriate fine or serves the required jail term, he or she is welcome to go back to taking people fishing or cruising for money.
The Coast Guard, which issues licenses for skippers who operate charter boats, headboats and other fee-charging vessels, doesn't think that's a good idea.
And so it has moved to change the law.
As of Wednesday, a licensed skipper convicted of any of a wide range of crimes could lose his or her Coast Guard license for up to 20 years.
The new law gives the federal agency the right to check the driving records and criminal backgrounds of all first-time license applicants, as well as those applying for license renewal.
If an applicant is found to have a conviction, he or she will automatically be denied a license for a specified period. It could range from one year for reckless driving to five years for the willful destruction of property to 20 years for murder, terrorism, sabotage or espionage.
Most Coast Guard penalties for actual criminal acts have been in place for several years. But the list has been expanded.
The drunken-driving penalties flow from the Exxon Valdez tanker grounding off the coast of Alaska in 1989, according to Stewart Walker, a Coast Guard spokesman in Washington. Millions of gallons of crude oil were spilled in what became one of the world's greatest environmental disasters.
Joseph Hazelwood, skipper of the Exxon Valdez, was never convicted of criminal charges stemming from the incident. However, he lost his ship-master's license for nine months and later had to pay $5,000 to Alaska's Native American fishermen.
Walker said that while licensed charter and headboat skippers would be subject to the new rules, they were not being singled out by Congress, which approved the laws.
``In adopting the laws, Congress was concerned about both personal safety, such as paying passengers, and about environmental damage,'' he said. ``I certainly don't think the legislators planned to single out any particular group.''
Now, even those applying for new licenses to operate charter boats, headboats and sightseeing boats will be required to provide the Coast Guard with actual copies of their driving records. Previously, the applicant merely was asked if he or she have been convicted of an offense other than minor traffic violations.
Walker said the Coast Guard realized that a person's motor-vehicle or criminal record may have nothing to do with his or her maritime career.
``But a record of alcohol- or drug-related or other motor vehicle offenses indicates that the individual may have a disregard for his or her own safety or the safety of others,'' Walker said.
Walker also said that as a result of the new laws, the Coast Guard anticipates that there will be fewer groundings and other accidents, reduced property loss, fewer releases of oil and hazardous materials, and fewer injuries and reduced loss of life.
Anyway, don't expect to see many licenses lifted from charter and headboat skippers along the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina. More than 30 years of observation tells me they're an extremely clean group. Besides, most are so into fishing and boats that they don't have time to drink or do drugs.
So you should feel safe the next time you put out up to $1,000 to have one of them take you fishing. by CNB