Maryland Bans Recreational Boating for the Duration

[malbert73]

Originally Posted by Tillsbury

The reason for banning recreational boating is because if you need assistance, the coastguard and other rescue services have to come out of isolation and risk themselves and the point of isolation in the first place by coming to help you. Same reason you shouldn’t be driving, hiking, hunting, mountaineering, and whatever else.

That may be, but in Maryland it is specifically okay to take a boat out to fish, or to hike, bike, paddleboard, and kayak.

https://news.maryland.gov/dnr/2020/03/31/frequently-asked-questions-about-governor-hogans-stay-at-home-order/"]https://news.maryland.gov/dnr/2020/03/31/frequently-asked-questions-about-governor-hogans-stay-at-home-order/

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by letsgetsailing3

A lot of folks don’t want to admit that recreational boating requires some interaction with others. But it does.

You need fuel. You need boat parts. You need bait. Some of you need alcohol. You need food. You may need towing or emergency health services. You need transport to and from your boat. You need your buddy Clem to go with you. You need another pair of sunglasses. Sure, you could order supplies online, but then someone has to bring them to you. It may be that you really don’t need any of this, but most people do.

Whenever you’re moving around, you interact with others. Some to a greater extent, some to a smaller extent. There are plenty who will bend or ignore any rule or request made.

This is going to be a challenge, and will require some inconvenience of everyone for the greater good. Nobody wants to sacrifice their leisure activities. Just be glad so little is being asked of most people right now. More was demanded of other generations. You can stay home and watch TV. You can paint a landscape. You can paint your house. You can work on your garden. You can watch a sunset or gaze at the stars. You can phone a friend who is going through the same experience.

Any small contribution that you can make to slow the spread right now, even if it only affects one person - even if it only affects you, is helpful. If you get sick and have to seek medical care, it’s another important resource used.

And that's the big difference between boaters. We are all very different.

In around 30 years of sailing, much of it full time cruising, I need:

Fuel, Food, Bost Parts and Water (plus Walmart stuff). Nothing else.

Fuel and water requires 2 trips to the fuel dock between now and September.
Food requires 2 trips to the grocery store in the same amount of time. Walmart is hit on the same trip.

2 public trips between now and September is a heck of a lot less than anyone living in their land home will be making and the fuel dock part of it only involves extremely light contact with whoever is handing you the hoses at the fuel dock.

The parts I need are currently on their way and being delivered. (Generator seasonal maintenance parts) The delivery driver is already on their route and is just making a stop like all the rest.

There's no way in the world staying at a house has less social contact than a boat because people don't bother to provision as well when they are in a house and easily able to go to the store once every week or 2. Plus no one can swing by my boat.

I think that's the other difference too. For some of us, sailing isn't a leisure activity. It's our home and where we live. I'll be living on my home between now and whenever the virus passes by. Without contacting anyone except what's stated above. No docks, no people. Walks on empty, desolate shorelines only. Just like always.

When it comes to SAR and towing, not a chance. This is coastal Cruising and mostly sitting in various anchorages. 95% of the time is sitting at anchor. Not going on any traveling unless it's weather better than a small craft advisory. No towing. It's a sailboat. No motor? Sail. Have done it a few times before in life. SAR in terms of heart attack or stroke or something? I accept it's my time to go if I have a medical emergency of that level while on a boat. Chances are slim of living through that even with outside help. Takes too long to get stabilized from wherever you are on the boat. You're a goner if you have a heart attack or stroke onboard. The rest of medical emergencies are taken care of with the medical kit. Sewing cuts, first aid, limb immobilization, antihistamines, Advil, EpiPen, Prednisone, stethoscope, blood pressure monitor and oximeter, we are considering adding an oxygen generator and resuscitation bag to our kit too. It's a work in progress. Girlfriend wants a defibrillator. I don't know.

But the reason we are having so many people angrily saying stay home from sailing on here (not you letsgetsailing), is because they sail so differently. I'll venture to guess they sail like when I first started:

See what friends want to go, bring BBQ stuff or plan our where to get dinner at the restaurant after, check in at the yacht club, stop at the grocery store and West Marine, stop at the liquor store and get everyone's favorite drinks, all drive to the marina meet for a festive, fun time. Go sailing for a while out to some marker or Island, turn around and go back to the dock. Drink, eat rejoice. Say your goodbyes and drive home. Maybe if feeling really adventurous, sleep over on the boat.

Yes, that's how I used to do it too.

That's a Covidiot type of outing without a doubt.

But let's remember how very different people are in terms of how they use their boats. Not everyone on the Cruisers forum are day sailors. Some are cruisers, or at the very least "boat preppers"

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by letsgetsailing3

A lot of folks don’t want to admit that recreational boating requires some interaction with others. But it does.

You need fuel. You need boat parts. You need bait. Some of you need alcohol. You need food. You may need towing or emergency health services. You need transport to and from your boat. You need your buddy Clem to go with you. You need another pair of sunglasses. Sure, you could order supplies online, but then someone has to bring them to you. It may be that you really don’t need any of this, but most people do.

Depends on the boat, where it's kept, and the boater. In my case, if I don't go too far from home, water can be obtained at my own slip with no interaction with other people and fuel would be an infrequent need. I can park my car 10 feet from the boat, so no interaction with others to get on the boat. It's an 8 minute drive from home, so it would be a while before I need to put gas in the car.

I'd need to buy food at some point whether I'm on the boat or at home, so no change there. Considering the number of packages being delivered around my neighborhood every day, ordering a boat part or 2 is a minimal impact.

The big change is no guests. Just the 2 of us and the dog (which is the case probably at least half the time on the boat normally).

[seandepagnier]

to be fair did they ban all other recreational activities like driving and flying?

Are they going to close the gas pumps (a great place to spread the disease) to those without a commercial license?

Also have roadblocks to prevent travel between counties and towns?

If so then I support closing boating too. It seems like you could just say you are fishing and it's ok but would need a fishing license.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by letsgetsailing3

...You need fuel. You need boat parts. You need bait. Some of you need alcohol. You need food. You may need towing or emergency health services. You need transport to and from your boat. You need your buddy Clem to go with you. You need another pair of sunglasses. Sure, you could order supplies online, but then someone has to bring them to you. It may be that you really don’t need any of this, but most people do.

Whenever you’re moving around, you interact with others. Some to a greater extent, some to a smaller extent. There are plenty who will bend or ignore any rule or request made.

This is going to be a challenge, and will require some inconvenience of everyone for the greater good. Nobody wants to sacrifice their leisure activities. Just be glad so little is being asked of most people right now. More was demanded of other generations. You can stay home and watch TV. You can paint a landscape. You can paint your house. You can work on your garden. You can watch a sunset or gaze at the stars. You can phone a friend who is going through the same experience....

I'm staying at home... But did your read what you wrote?


Fuel. Not if you sail. I use about a pint and I bring it in a can.


Alcohol. I'd need more if I stayed home. That one's just dumb.


Bait. I either collect live bait or troll, so zero.


Buddy. Nope you don't. Or it could be family.


Another pair of sunglasses. We're reaching, aren't we?


Interaction. No, I don't interact. I may want to, but I don't have to.


Other people. Yes, the congregating of others is the problem. People also drink and drive, but we don't ban driving, only drunk driving.


Need vs. want. That's a funny one. We don't need to be wasting electrons on this forum. I don't need to fish. I do need to eat.



TV. People are going to work to service media transmission equipment, make TVs (like boats, they break), film content, and generate the electricity that keeps your lights on.


Painting the house. I imagine this involves going to Home Depot to by paint. People have to make the chemicals that going into paint, ship them cross country, put them in cans, and take them to the store.


Garden. Had to buy seed and fertilizer. Probably some plant starts as well.


Going out on a boat, a small distance, is not of itself worse, only different.


As for the "puting rescue services at risk claim by another, that's just funny. Are you accident prone?

[redneckrob]

I think everyone needs to move outside their tiny little world and realize that when you've got an emergency going on you're going to by necessity paint with a broad brush and hit some small pockets of unintended consequences. That happens even when you have long, thoughtful processes with plenty of stakeholder feedback.
There's no dispute that out of the 327,000,000 people we live with here in the United States, there are 10 or 20 or 100 who sail quietly into unoccupied anchorages and don't need to stop for food or fuel or anything else. You make up a miniscule percentage of all of us. So sorry, you're inconvenienced by a law that was quickly drawn up and ensnared your tiny tiny little group even though it doesn't make sense.

Explaining as nauseum how little risk you are or how stupid the law is as it relates to you specifically is you completely missing the point. We realize the law wasn't perfect. We realize you 100 or 200 or 2000 people were inconvenienced, sorry. We have far far bigger issues on our hands right now. You're the equivalent of a 5 year old complaining about why they have to sit in the back seat and watch Frozen for the 3rd time when you're driving through a blizzard in hopes of seeing your dying grandmother before she passes away.

Everyone else realizes that not everything is being done optimally right now, perhaps instead of whining about it we can all spend some time being thankful for the fact that we're not in the service industry with no job or hope of one soon or that we're in the medical field putting our life on the line every minute we're at work, and spend the time we were going to complain thinking about how fortunate we are?

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by thinwater

I'm staying at home... But did your read what you wrote?

Fuel. Not if you sail. I use about a pint and I bring it in a can.

Alcohol. I'd need more if I stayed home. That one's just dumb.

Bait. I either collect live bait or troll, so zero.

Buddy. Nope you don't. Or it could be family.

Another pair of sunglasses. We're reaching, aren't we?

Interaction. No, I don't interact. I may want to, but I don't have to.

Other people. Yes, the congregating of others is the problem. People also drink and drive, but we don't ban driving, only drunk driving.

Need vs. want. That's a funny one. We don't need to be wasting electrons on this forum. I don't need to fish. I do need to eat.

TV. People are going to work to service media transmission equipment, make TVs (like boats, they break), film content, and generate the electricity that keeps your lights on.

Painting the house. I imagine this involves going to Home Depot to by paint. People have to make the chemicals that going into paint, ship them cross country, put them in cans, and take them to the store.

Garden. Had to buy seed and fertilizer. Probably some plant starts as well.

Going out on a boat, a small distance, is not of itself worse, only different.

As for the "puting rescue services at risk claim by another, that's just funny. Are you accident prone?

Can you promise you won't need any health care or assistance? Good on ya, then.

Someone once said "No man is an island." I guess some men are.

It may well be that some can minimize their interactions to the level you describe. Many more than that will be able to stretch their imaginations to justify any interactions, and don't think any rule, large or small, should apply to them.

The guidelines are meant for everyone, to keep everyone as safe as possible. Some people get it. And some folks, well, they can work it out so the rules don't apply to them.

I get that the rules aren't perfect. There will be some that say: Hey, that guy has more freedom than me! When they make an exception for sustenance fishing they'll say, hey, but I can add a fishing pole to my boat! So I can still go sailing! They aren't perfect. Some are no doubt politically-motivated. But the more people who follow them, the fewer folks will have to die.

Eventually, we'll have some therapies and vaccines. Right now we don't. So contracting COVID 19 is a currently a death sentence for some folks. And the health care workers who are putting their own safety at risk to save them are at great risk. Those groups are the ones we're really trying to protect.

Everyone's conscience is going to be their guide.


Well, carry on, and stay safe.

[hpeer]

Redneckrob,

Go clean up 30,000 people in Kensington district of Philadeldhia who are not abiding by social distancing and when you are done then come worry about us few souls you are preaching to.

[Montanan]

Originally Posted by redneckrob

I think everyone needs to move outside their tiny little world and realize that when you've got an emergency going on you're going to by necessity paint with a broad brush and hit some small pockets of unintended consequences. That happens even when you have long, thoughtful processes with plenty of stakeholder feedback.
There's no dispute that out of the 327,000,000 people we live with here in the United States, there are 10 or 20 or 100 who sail quietly into unoccupied anchorages and don't need to stop for food or fuel or anything else. You make up a miniscule percentage of all of us. So sorry, you're inconvenienced by a law that was quickly drawn up and ensnared your tiny tiny little group even though it doesn't make sense.

Explaining as nauseum how little risk you are or how stupid the law is as it relates to you specifically is you completely missing the point. We realize the law wasn't perfect. We realize you 100 or 200 or 2000 people were inconvenienced, sorry. We have far far bigger issues on our hands right now. You're the equivalent of a 5 year old complaining about why they have to sit in the back seat and watch Frozen for the 3rd time when you're driving through a blizzard in hopes of seeing your dying grandmother before she passes away.

Everyone else realizes that not everything is being done optimally right now, perhaps instead of whining about it we can all spend some time being thankful for the fact that we're not in the service industry with no job or hope of one soon or that we're in the medical field putting our life on the line every minute we're at work, and spend the time we were going to complain thinking about how fortunate we are?

Wow, there sure are a lot of whiners, bitching and moaning about being modestly put out during a pandemic. IMHO, exhibiting pretty sad state of minds and lacking of quality in character. Certainly wouldn't want to include them as crew.

[thinwater]

New sub-topic. Do NOT assume or infer that I have a specific answer in mind. I am only starting a conversation. I don't pretend to know the answer and I'm not volunteering one.



When will it be appropriate to lift boating bans? It could be several of these combined.

• When infection rates fall below X/thousand (can't be zero)?
• When it is below 50F, which will generally prevent large gatherings?
• If social distancing can be maintained (solo or family or less than X other people)? IMO, the 6' rule is a poor fit for boating, as I think most agree.
• When general "stay-at-home" restrictions are lifted? Will that be based on infections/thousand, herd immunity (not for a long time), a vaccine (not for a long time), treatments (nothing game-changing on the horizon), trends, politics, economic realities, or some other factors?
• Other?

Just a discussion. Play nice. Remember, there are no black and white answers.

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by hpeer

Redneckrob,

Go clean up 30,000 people in Kensington district of Philadeldhia who are not abiding by social distancing and when you are done then come worry about us few souls you are preaching to.

I think you might not have read my post? I'm telling us all to stop whining about being mildly inconvenienced by a broad brush law that has a very small impact on a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of all Americans. And perhaps to spend that time you would have spent whining being thankful that you're not one of the millions who are impacted so much more dramatically. Do you disagree with that?

It's really unclear what the Kensington district of Philadelphia has to do with anything I posted? Best I can tell you're espousing a philosophy that if others violate a law then that gives you license to do so as well. That's debatable (as is your Kensington assertion, helps your credibility of knowing what's happening in Philadelphia if you can actually spell Philadelphia!). However since I wasn't talking about anyone violating the law, just asking everyone to whine less and be more thankful for what they have, I'm not sure what Kensington has to do with that at all, even if your assertion were true?

[Dsanduril]

Originally Posted by redneckrob

I think everyone needs to move outside their tiny little world and realize that when you've got an emergency going on you're going to by necessity paint with a broad brush and hit some small pockets of unintended consequences....

Explaining as nauseum how little risk you are or how stupid the law is as it relates to you specifically is you completely missing the point. ...

Thinking we are inside our "tiny little world" when discussing the clear political pandering in stay-at-home orders and similar restrictions "while you've got an emergency going on" is a deliberate put-down and rude. Calling out BS in regulations goes far beyond my "tiny little world".

The "as [sic] nauseum" description of the risks isn't (at least in my case) because I think I deserve better, or an exception, it is, instead, to point out a flaw in a legal command. And as you yourself pointed out, those commands have not been vetted through the normal process. So they get vetted here and in other public forums. That is as it should be (at least in a society where every member has some form of voice).

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by Dsanduril

Thinking we are inside our "tiny little world" when discussing the clear political pandering in stay-at-home orders and similar restrictions "while you've got an emergency going on" is a deliberate put-down and rude. Calling out BS in regulations goes far beyond my "tiny little world".

The "as [sic] nauseum" description of the risks isn't (at least in my case) because I think I deserve better, or an exception, it is, instead, to point out a flaw in a legal command. And as you yourself pointed out, those commands have not been vetted through the normal process. So they get vetted here and in other public forums. That is as it should be (at least in a society where every member has some form of voice).

The Maryland boating restriction did not set out to unfairly discriminate against a handful of cruisers as a form of political pandering. That's not only absurd, but if we seriously think that then it's again displaying a striking self absorption on our part to think that it is anything other than what it is: a quickly thrown together executive order done in the heat of an emergency that inevitably will be less than perfect. And if you're taking my statement of fact that we indeed have an emergency going on as "rude" or a "put-down".....well I'm at a loss for words on that one, sorry. Are you in the same Maryland I'm in?

There are clear flaws in the executive order. We all agree, heck I'm sure even Gov Hogan would be the first to agree. If we had the hubris that is, to ask him to drop everything, stop with this whole COVID response nonsense, and pay attention to what really matters right now, us and our ability to cruise as we like. Pointing out the flaws that everyone knows are there is at this point in time not only pointless but if we're demanding people who are pretty busy doing far more important things to "fix these flaws right this minute" then we're being incredibly selfish and narcissistic.

How about we make a deal. When Gov Hogan and the emergency management folks in MD go back to working 8 hour days, we start talking about fixing these hastily written executive orders. And until then, we at the very least stop whining and perhaps actually try to see if there is anything useful we can do to help. Is that unreasonable?

[Dsanduril]

Originally Posted by redneckrob

The Maryland boating restriction did not set out to unfairly discriminate against a handful of cruisers as a form of political pandering. That's not only absurd, but if we seriously think that then it's again displaying a striking self absorption on our part to think that it is anything other than what it is: a quickly thrown together executive order done in the heat of an emergency that inevitably will be less than perfect. ....

Never said that not being able to go sailing was political pandering. In fact, can't think of how it would be. If you actually read the thread you'd see that I said allowing charter fishing boats to go out with a small crowd of strangers each day, interacting with a fixed crew, and then the same crew going out the next day with a different small crowd of strangers, on the basis that the activity forms a "critical part of the food supply" was pandering. What other reason is there for such a specific exemption that flies in the face of every single facet of isolation and quarantine?

If those hard-working emergency management folks have time to actually write such a specific exemption and publish it on the state website then they certainly have to time to reflect on forming that exemption and see what an absurd thing it is.

And if it is that easy to find one exemption that is prima facie stupid (yes, stupid) then shouldn't we be digging for others that may be more significant? You may trust and accept a totalitarian government edict on its face because it is presented as an "emergency order" by hardworking emergency service workers. I don't. So I guess I'll keep "whining" - what a great way to try and deflect by characterizing the person making the argument rather than presenting some good reasoning. Sounds just like our commander-in-chief.

How many people here knew the name of their city/town/county/state health official before this started? How many do now? Now that you know them and have seen them in action, how many of them would you trust to be your physician? Or if you don't thinks that's a fair role comparison, to be the manager of the hospital in which you are being treated? Just because someone is in power is not a reason for me to trust them. Far too many times in my life have I seen incompetence rise to the top (both public and private). And that goes double, or even more in a time of crisis. Many of them didn't show me that they could be trusted in calm times, asking me to trust them in times of crisis when they feel the power of their petty authority? My one hope is that this will see some rise to the top and show that they deserve the trust, until they do, it is my job as a citizen to question.

If I were to make a sailing analogy then I'd say that the time to prepare for the storm is long before it arrives, but once it does arrive you have to review every strategy you pre-selected and evaluate how well it fits the conditions. And you have to re-evaluate continuously during the storm. If you wait until after the storm is passed to evaluate those critical decisions then like as not it is too late. Certainly you can review them again after the weather calms and try to decide if "next time" you ought to do things differently or plan differently, but during the height of the storm is when the most critical decision making needs to occur.

[Montanan]