Drawbridge Tender Authority

[jeremiason]

Municipal Code of Fort Launderdale:
Sec. 8-150. Equipment requiring opening of bridges.
(a)
A vessel shall not require the opening of a bridge when such opening is needed only to provide additional clearance for appurtenances unessential to navigation of the vessel, as defined by the United States Corps of Engineers, or for appurtenances essential to navigation, but which may be altered by hinging, telescoping, collapsing, or otherwise, so as to require no greater clearance than the highest fixed and essentially unalterable point of the vessel.
(b)
Appurtenances unessential to navigation shall include but not be limited to fishing outriggers, radio antennae which are or can reasonably be made flexible or collapsible, television antennae, false stacks and masts purely for ornamental purposes. Appurtenances unessential to navigation shall not include radar antennae, flying bridges, sailboat masts, piledriver leads, spud frames on hydraulic dredges, drilling derricks, derrick substructures and/or buildings, cranes on drilling or construction vessels, or other items of permanent and fixed equipment clearly necessary to the intended use of the vessel.

[jeremiason]

Also there is a section in the Fort Lauderdale Municipal Code that states:

Sec. 8-141. Obedience to lawful orders; resisting arrest.

It shall be unlawful for any person to resist arrest or to wilfully fail or refuse to comply with any lawful order of the supervisor of marine facilities, any police officer, or other city official as may hereinafter be designated.

So the question is if the Bridge Tender is a designated City Official???

If so, the Bridge Tender could write you a ticket under he Fort Lauderdale City Ordinance.

It would be worth a call to the City for clarification.

[Cheechako]

Yeah, every once in a while you get a really weird tender. Just like the rest of the population, there's that percentage of people on a power trip. On a bad day they can be nasty. most are pretty good though. In your case I would have likely just totally ignored them. They hate that!

[avb3]

I moved my boat from Biscayne Bay to Tampa via the ICW from Stuart onwards.

I had never encountered bridge operators before and found them most helpful. Most of the Florida state ones are on a schedule (half hourly or hourly), whereas the ones crossing interstates are on demand.

I suspect you got a bad one on a bad day.

[BandB]

We live in Fort Lauderdale and find the bridge tenders very nice and cooperative. They have a big responsibility to both boat and car traffic. They deserve respect and some of the things I've heard people say to them are disgraceful. When they tell a boat they need to wait there is probably a good reason as they can see all the area on both sides of the bridge. All of us on the water have a limited view. If it's a scheduled opening they don't care about antennas but by rule they are not going to open just for a boat that could clear if they lowered an antenna. Most of the bridges in our area are on schedules however.

If you were argumentative and/or laughing that's disrespectful and regardless of what the tender said not appropriate. And, frankly, once through the bridge to me the entire issue would have been over. Forgotten. The End. As for writing a complaint, want to read his response? "Pleasure Boat was going through at excess speed and was argumentative and rude when I politely told them to slow. Then after I was harsher the second time they continued to laugh and joke about it, treating it as a laughing matter rather than serious. At the time of their passage there was a small family fishing boat about to clear that was being bounced by their wake." So you would have been warned not to do that again. Seriously, his story would have clashed with yours regardless of what really happened.

[who_cares]

the tender at the railroad bridge over the Thames river in New London, CT always sounded drunk...

[BandB]

Originally Posted by who_cares

the tender at the railroad bridge over the Thames river in New London, CT always sounded drunk...

Some people just sound that way. Actually had a guy who use to work in the company I worked for and he would sound a bit that way. People tended to make fun of him. The reality was he had a lisp and he mumbled in trying not to show it as much, making things worse. When you knew him, sat with him in person, turns out he was extremely bright and great to work with. I talked to him once about speaking up, that he made the situation worse than it was. I was amazed at how much it did help when he did so.

Or the guy could have been drunk...lol. Hope not.