Your Safe/Sea membership is designed to get you home from your day on the water when something simple disables your boat, like the effects of ethanol in your fuel system, a broken serpentine belt, dead battery, or spun prop. In cases like these, simply anchor safely and call Safe/Sea on VHF 16 or 401-295-8711 from your cell phone. We then send a pristine 30-35 foot high speed jet drive inflatable rescue boat at about 35 knots to get you going again or take you home. In many cases, we can tow you like you’re water skiing and even the ride home is a part of the fun of a day on the water. We almost always get you back in your own slip. How can we do that? Well, where as you may only dock your boat once or twice a week, our captains dock all sorts of boats in all kinds of weather, wind and currents 5, 6, 7 or more times on a busy weekend day. Service like this is free to you, included with your Safe/Sea Premier membership.

But what do you do if your day isn’t going that well? The belt breaks. Sure, no big deal. But the wind is blowing 25 knots and the tide is running. Your anchor will not hold and, before you know it, you’re in the rocks. Now what do you do? You may first want to get everyone into a life jacket. Then call the Coast Guard on VHF 16 with your location, boat description, number of people on board, and your situation. Location is key. GPS is the best, if you can give it accurately along with a geographical reference like Beavertail Point or Brenton Reef. (Not that anyone would want to be on Brenton reef in these circumstances, but it does happen.) However, if you call out the GPS position for your favorite fish’n spot off Newport while you’re sinking at Prudence Island, but neglect to mention that you’re off the north end of Prudence Island, well, the day just gets worse. If you call the Coast Guard, chances are we will hear it too, and will respond. Safe/Sea has a lot of ears tuned to the radio.  Don’t look too surprised should we beat them there; that happens too.

If you’re in the rocks, you want Safe/Sea to show up. Why? In a lot of cases, we may be the only ones willing or able to drive into the rocks to get you out. Our boats have aluminum hulls with jet drives, so our boats won’t be disabled or holed by bouncing off rocks as we come to get you. If we can get you out and you are taking on water, we have pumps, patching equipment, dive gear, underwater drills, and underwater curing epoxies. Our Dispatch Center has after-hours contact numbers for emergency haul-outs all over the state. We have multiple trucks and a trailer dedicated to salvage gear with high capacity pumps, lift bags, generator, an air compressor and large straps to wrap around an entire boat to pull it off the beach.

This is not to say the Coast Guard won’t save you. They have amazing resources at their disposal. Their 47’ lifeboats will roll over in heavy seas and keep going. But they will not drive the 47 trough the rocks to get your boat out. They will most likely call for a helicopter and pluck you off the boat or out or the water. They practice and drill for that scenario all the time. If you have injuries they have medics. They save lives no question! Their focus is on just that, your life and health. If you want to get an idea of what they do best see the movie “The Protector”.

Ok, you decide that you and your crew will be saved. Whether it’s by a Coast Guard helicopter or boat. Of course it could be by the Safe/Sea salvage boat, too. Now what about your boat? You’ve invested more than money into it. You have more personal effects on board than you can carry while floating in a life jacket. It is just stuff…not worth your life.  You probably have it insured. But is there anything that can be done? There are situations where the answer is “no”. Last year, early one foggy morning, a sailboat ran up onto Black Point in Narragansett. The northeasterly wind was driving them onto the rocks with 4 to 6 foot seas. That day, the answer was “no”. The owners had to abandon ship and watch it all bust up on the rocks. They were convinced that the risks were too great. We were contacted to salvage the boat and also decided the risk was too great. Within hours, the boat was gone, reduced to splinters on the rocky beach. They survived without injuries.

You say “get us off of this thing!! You can come get the boat later!!”  If the Safe/Sea captain feels it is safe, he will do so, no questions asked. You weigh the risk and you want off. We weigh the risk and think we can save the boat. Sometimes it makes just as much sense to save the crew while saving the boat, rather than risking injuries while abandoning ship. Either way, we will want to enter into a contract with you to provide the salvage services, just like you would have a contract for a construction project on your home. And like the contractor you hire at home, if the job never gets done, we don’t get paid. These services are not usually calculated by hourly rate or a per foot charge; it is usually determined by the risks of the job and values of the property involved. This may be the first case you’ve been involved in like this, but there are hundreds of years of case history where risk and award has been determined. Our claim has to stand up to this history. While you will have a contract with us, the chief beneficiary of our service in saving the boat is your insurance company. Under your policy, they should be responsible for the total value of the boat plus the cost of salvage. Every year, review your policy for this and the deductibles you carry. If the boat is insured for $100,000 and we can safely get it to a repair facility that in turn spends $10,000 in repairs, that’s $90,000 better for your insurer than if we don’t save it. Salvage awards consider many factors. To learn more about salvage go to our web page at http://www.safesea.com/boating_info/salvage/salvage_main.html

This is just one of many problems boaters might face with which Safe/Sea can help. Over the course of the season, we will share our stories in our newsletters and on our web site for your benefit. Please check safesea.com weekly for the latest pictures and video of the rescues happening in Rhode Island waters.