Marine Safety Under The Coast Guard
The Marine Safety program is still administered by the Coast Guard, an agency later under the control of the United States Department of Transportation and now under the control of the United States Department of Homeland Security. In an attempt to promote better service to the maritime industry as well as the general public, the marine inspection and Captain of the Port/port safety functions were combined. The marine inspectors of the Coast Guard come from varying backgrounds and careers. Among the officers in the program, some are graduates of the United States Coast Guard Academy, some are graduates of the various maritime academies, and some are prior civilians that attended Officer Candidate School. Many of the officers in this field, including all of the Chief Warrant Officers in the field, are prior-enlisted Coast Guardsmen who have progressed through the enlisted ranks and earned commissions.
Due to an increase in small boat accidents, the Small Passenger Vessel Act of May 10, 1956, was passed into law. The requirements of this act became effective on June 1, 1958, and provided that all vessels, regardless of size or propulsion, carrying more than six passengers for hire, be inspected by a Marine Inspector of the Coast Guard, and meet associated safety requirements. These requirements not only cover life saving and fire fighting equipment, but also machinery and electrical installations, hull strength and stability considerations. This law required that operators be licensed by the Coast Guard and minimum manning requirements be met. Additionally, the route or routes on which the vessel may operate and the maximum number of passengers that may be carried are established by the Coast Guard.
Read more about this topic: Steamboat Inspection Service
Famous quotes containing the words marine, safety, coast and/or guard:
“God has a hard-on for a Marine because we kill everything we see. He plays His game, we play ours.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)
“Perhaps in a book review it is not out of place to note that the safety of the state depends on cultivating the imagination.”
—Stephen Vizinczey (b. 1933)
“It cannot but affect our philosophy favorably to be reminded of these shoals of migratory fishes, of salmon, shad, alewives, marsh-bankers, and others, which penetrate up the innumerable rivers of our coast in the spring, even to the interior lakes, their scales gleaming in the sun; and again, of the fry which in still greater numbers wend their way downward to the sea.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Let us guard against saying that there are laws in nature. There are merely necessities: there is no one who commands, no one who obeys, no one who transgresses. Once you understand that there are no purposes, then you also understand that nothing is accidental: for it is only in a world of purposes that the word “accident” makes sense.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)