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A Vessel Safety Check is a courtesy examination of your boat (vessel) to verify the presence and condition of certain safety equipment required by State and Federal regulations. The Vessel Examiners are trained specialists and are members of the Mid-Coast Sail & Power Squadron, other branches of the USPS®, or the US Coast Guard Auxiliary. They will make certain recommendations and discuss certain safety issues that will make you and your boat safer.

The inspection is not a boarding or law enforcement issue. No citations are given as a result of the inspection. The examiners will supply you with a copy of their evaluation sheet so that you can follow some of the suggestions given. Vessels that pass are given a distinctive VSC decal indicating compliance. This does not exempt you from law enforcement or Coast Guard boarding, but you can be prepared to make this a positive encounter.

Public Vessel Safety Checks are normally scheduled each spring at the start of the boating season. These are announced in local newspapers, and will be publicized on this web site when they are scheduled. For more information about the Vessel Safety Check details and inspection criteria, refer to the Vessel Safety Check Web Site. A Vessel Safety Check evaluation form that can be viewed or printed is available in PDF format.

Safe boating happens when knowledgeable people are using properly equipped and well maintained boats and following safe practices. Every year, too many people die in boating related accidents in Maine. Usually this happens when sailors find themselves outside of their boats, where hypothermia sets in quickly in the cold waters of the Gulf of Maine. Life jackets often are not thought of until there is an emergency, and many emergencies don't leave time to find them. People without personal flotation devices tire quickly and are hard to find in the water. The prudent mariner always wears a life jacket and insists that his passengers do the same. But the safe mariner does everything he can to insure that PDFs remain a back-up system and not a primary support system, by insuring that he and his passengers stay in the boat, and that his boat stays off of the rocks.

Following the best practices of seamanship, skippers can do much to keep themselves, their passengers and those in neighboring boats out of harms way. A strong knowledge of the fundamentals of piloting and navigation enables skippers to keep their crafts on course. In the global positioning era, one can be easily lulled into believing that a hundred dollars spent on technology can make a blue water navigator out of anyone. But equipment can fail and satellites can fall; The prudent captain never trusts his boat or the lives of his passengers on a single system. He always has a back-up plan if the unexpected happens. If emergencies happen, the educated mariner knows how best to respond to them, and where to seek needed help.

Boater education: The Mid-Coast Sail and Power Squadron offers boating safety courses on a regular basis to boaters in our communities. These courses are open to the public and there is no age limit for participants. USPS squadrons have offered these courses for over half a century and have educated more than 3 million boaters to date. Successfully completing a USPS boating safety course meets the educational requirements for boat operation in all states and is a requirement for squadron membership. To learn more about the Squadron's educational program, click on the Boating Education button.

Vessel safety checks: Find out if your boat is safe or properly equipped. In a cooperative program with the US Coast Guard Auxiliary, squadron members conduct courtesy Vessel Safety Checks of boats at the request of their owners. To learn more about this program and how to get your boat checked, click on the Vessel Safety Check button.

Cooperative charting: Our members also help the National Ocean Service keep our nautical charts accurate by reporting chart corrections. Our squadron also participates in many other safety related community improvement projects. Click on the Cooperative Charting button to learn more about this program.