Oct
It appears that Chief Edward Hargis was riding in the new Portsmouth Police Boat yesterday when he got tossed out of the boat. I don’t know if any injury ensued (except as a minimum to some ones pride and then hide), I hope not. Given that the boat was new I have my doubts that anyone was properly trained in it’s operation. It will be interesting to see what Public Relations spin the Portsmouth Police Department puts on the incident.
I can only speculate how this happened but here are my theories;
1) It was intentional - Not likely but with Portsmouth one never knows..
2) The Helmsman/Captain (driver) was not properly trained and had limited boat handling skills (as I am a former US Navy Sailor this would be my guess).
3) The weather - well that typically goes back to number 2 above. If you are the Helmsman/Captain of a vessel you are responsible for taking the weather into consideration before placing you vessel in the water or if it’s already in the water putting it in a hazardous situation.
US Coast Guard statistics indicate that “Operator errors account for 70% of boating accidents”. So my question is this, was the Captain of the boat a trained and qualified boat operator???
Below is the Executive Summary from the US Coast Guard Recreational Boating Statistics 2008 that indicates most of the causes of boating accident. Take a look at Number 5, that’s my bet .. Another embarrassment involving the Management of the Portsmouth Police Department.
US Coast Guard Executive Summary from Boating Statistics 2008
