At what point should the Coast Guard just say "Give us contact details for your next of kin, then go ahead. YOYO."? It's not like they'll be inundated with Darwin Award wannabe's anywhere near as creative and determined as this guy.
Yeah I was curious what law is actually being broken by doing this?
> [US Coast Guard] officers determined Baluchi was conducting a manifestly unsafe voyage," the criminal complaint says.
Since when is it illegal to do things that are unsafe in America? Why can I own a gun and fireworks and liquor and gas stoves and toxic chemicals then?
> Officials said he refused to step off the vessel and threatened to kill himself. He also claimed that he had a bomb on board, according to court papers.
As a generality, "unsafe voyage" is a reasonable thing to outlaw. Morons will need search & rescue on the CG's taxpayer-supplied dime, then maybe need medical care at public expense, too. Plus too-trusting friends & family who are along for the ride on their SS Davey Jones, collisions with other boats, cleaning up the wreckage and oil slicks, etc., etc.
Vs. this guy's "water wheel" seems to fairly-mostly avoid those issues, if the CG could just say "YOYO" and forget about him.
> Morons will need search & rescue on the CG's taxpayer-supplied dime, then maybe need medical care at public expense, too
This sounds like something adults should be allowed to opt out of. As long as the rest of us can be mature enough to not call for heads when some of them inevitably die, there shouldn’t be moral hazard. (Or maybe you’re rescued but you foot the entire bill.)
Adults who are rational and mentally healthy, sure.
If a person were on top of a tall building wearing a bed sheet as a cape, letting them jump would be a similar moral issue in my eyes.
If this person was warned that he would not be rescued and the next day sent out a distress signal, do you really think coast guard and other agencies would ignore the call for help?
> do you really think coast guard and other agencies would ignore the call for help?
Arizona's stupid motorist law, which "states that any motorist who becomes stranded after driving around barricades to enter a flooded stretch of roadway may be charged for the cost of their rescue," is the model legislation here [1].
> As a generality, "unsafe voyage" is a reasonable thing to outlaw. Morons will need search & rescue on the CG's taxpayer-supplied dime, then maybe need medical care at public expense, too.
Of all the stupid things regular people can do to add strain/cost to the united states' social systems, "unsafe voyage" seems pretty low on the list, both in cost and frequency. I'd guess that injuries as a result of accidental gun discharge and/or fireworks easily 10x-100x yearly spend on search and rescue.
> Plus too-trusting friends & family who are along for the ride on their SS Davey Jones, collisions with other boats, cleaning up the wreckage and oil slicks, etc., etc.
I am not arguing that unsafe voyage is a bad idea. I am arguing that it's out of character for this country to ban a specific bad idea due to safety.
And if you think number of ambulances/ER/firetrucks is limited, they feel positively unlimited compared to more specialist rescue resources (sea, mountain, air etc.)
"Universally" makes that statement useless. Vermont only allows sparklers. That is practically a ban on fireworks in the context of this discussion. Many other states have strong restrictions, partially for sake of reducing injuries (and noise and fire risk).
And there is constant advocacy for stronger restrictions/bans.
The point is, we do restrict people's actions on fireworks and guns in order to prevent larger costs. They are not a counter example for why the Coast Guard should have done nothing in this case.
Yeah, that seems to be it. The Coast Guard has quite a bit of power in US waters, and if they see this thing they're likely to investigate. Maybe they thought it was the latest tech from a drug cartel.
> Mr Baluchi's voyage began as officials were preparing for the arrival of a major hurricane.
> Officials said he refused to step off the vessel and threatened to kill himself. He also claimed that he had a bomb on board, according to court papers.
> On 1 September, he eventually surrendered and abandoned his vessel after being brought to a Coast Guard base in Miami.
> Officials later determined that the "bomb" had been fake.
> He is now facing federal charges of obstruction of a boarding, and violation of a Captain of the Port order.
He wasn't arrested for an unsafe vessel, he was arrested for everything else it appears.
The problem is that this will turn into another one of those high profile search and rescue operations like the Titanic submersible. The Coast Guard is going to have to spend weeks looking for this dude’s debris under constant mass media scrutiny, wasting untold amounts of taxpayer dollars.
No amount of “he made his own adult decision” is going to fix the optics of not helping his family on CNN begging the state to bring daddy's half-eaten remains back for a proper burial.
My understanding is that if someone is at sea and in distress, saying "you asked for it" isn't a valid reason to ignore their SOS. So, if someone goes out in "an unsafe manner", then it's quite likely that real mariners (e.g. the Coast Guard) will have to risk their own lives to save Bozo's.
> USCG officers then approached BALUCHI and the Vessel in a USCG small boat.
USCG officers informed BALUCHI that he needed to disembark the Vessel onto their small boat since they were terminating his voyage due to it being manifestly unsafe. BALUCHI replied that he was armed with a 12-inch knife and would attempt to commit suicide should the USCG officers attempt to remove him from the Vessel. The USCG officers then returned to the USCG Cutter VALIANT, which remained on scene.
...
> On or about August 27, 2023, the USCG Cutter VALIANT continued to make
efforts to disembark BALUCHI utilizing their small boat. However, BALUCHI displayed two knives and threatened to hurt himself if officers boarded the Vessel. Moreover, BALUCHI threatened to blow himself up, along with the Vessel. USCG officers believed this to be a valid threat, as they observed BALUCHI holding wires in his hand. USCG officers contacted the U.S. Navy Explosive Ordinance Disposal Unit at Kings Bay, Georgia to determine blast and
fragmentation radius of the alleged bomb.
> On or about August 28, 2023, the USCG Cutter CAMPBELL arrived on scene with
the USCG Cutter VALIANT to provide support. The USCG Cutter CAMPBELL launched a small boat to attempt to deliver food, water, and predictions of the incoming hurricane to BALUCHI. USCG officers again ordered BALUCHI off the Vessel, but he again refused. It was then that BALUCHI informed the USCG officers that the bomb was not real.
The complaint goes on. The Coast Guard spent a week on this guy. Seems like he wasn't obeying the rules and earned his arrest at a minimum. All of this while a hurricane was on its way.
Funny, some crazy guy's perfectly fine hamster wheel vessel gets deemed manifestly unsafe however an eccentric entrepreneur's million dollar submarine ends up crumpling up some billionaires.
the hamster wheel was manifestly and plainly unsafe. it was a terrible idea and the guy was crazy, to include threatening the coast guard with a bomb and/or stabbing and/or suicide.
the imploded submarine was consistently told it was unsafe, but also had managed to make several successful dives. it did have failsafes, albeit woefully ineffective, and a crew on a ship hanging out above. they had real operational plans and experience, they just cut corners on everything and eventually it went bad.
I don't understand why they have to intervene besides giving him warnings. At some point, tell him he's not their responsibility anymore if he refuses again and go do something more productive.
Countless human hours spent preventing someone from doing something that would harm no one but himself.
There are probably good Samaritan laws forcing public officers to provide "help" if they are informed of a situation and no way out of it. A family member that is a cop said to never tell anything in good faith to a cop because then they are forced by law to follow procedures, even if they don't want to otherwise they are the ones getting arrested/fired/suspended.
He had 3 other tries that all ended with Coast Guard intervention. On this one he disobeyed Coast Guard orders and claimed he had a bomb. Chances are he was also in violation of rules/laws regarding water craft permits, identification and any/all safety protocols.
What you described are not good Samaritan laws. Those are about lowering legal responsibility for people doing their best to help someone in peril. I.e. you did your best and accidentally injured someone while trying to prevent their death, do can't be sued for the injury.
Is a danger for himself but also to other ships that could crash against that structure. The sea is a busy road and this thing can easily sink a small boat carried by the wind, or crush somebody if carried by a wave onboard of a bigger ship and falling over a worker.
Plus recent spy issues of people mapping sensible locations while pretending to be a lost tourist, that must be addressed.
Saving his life is just the cherry on top. To save the rescue team to risk their lives later is the main goal. The man is an idiot that should know better and respect the sea.
Had he ever demonstrated that could get further than his own state, you might have a point. But those reading TFA all the way to the end know that it’s not the first time the Coast Guard has pulled him out of the water, and it’s not been far from where he started.
What wasn’t clear from the article is if he needed to be pulled out of the water or if the coast guard “rescued” him because they just assumed he was insane. (Which seems reasonable). He does however seem to not want to be rescued and allows to hamster wheel himself to a probable death. I do wonder why he isn’t allowed to, people do all sorts of insane things and die doing it and they’re allowed to, such as difficult climbs without ropes.
Probably because a few days at sea later... he'll pop his emergency beacon and the Coast Guard will spend a bunch of time and resources plucking him out of the water.
With ocean currents, winds, etc., it seems vastly unlikely his contraption would have traveled any distance the ocean didn't allow anyway.
The article clearly stated he is facing charges for obstruction of boarding so the Coast Guard had probable cause to board and he refused and said he had a bomb.
Given that this is his third/fourth attempt at hamster wheeling in the Atlantic they probably knew exactly who it was when they got the call.
> Officials said he refused to step off the vessel and threatened to kill himself. He also claimed that he had a bomb on board, according to court papers.
Fortunately he did not actually have a bomb on board.
This guy was clearly crazy, made suicide and bomb threats, and was stopped before. There was also little to no real chance he'd make it; this isn't like swimming the English Channel, and even then those attempting it had boats & support.
The imploded submersible guy was well known in the industry to be cutting corners and playing fast and loose, but had done successful dives in the past, and had a boat there to support him. Playing fast and loose in a sub will eventually get you killed -- and it did -- but there was at least something of a track record.
Oceanic trade generates great economic value and requires seafarers. Seafaring is inherently dangerous, but the rate of death of seafarers is much less than it would be if it weren't for coast guards, one of whose main functions is rescuing seafarers in distress. This rescuing function is expensive, so one of the rules of the sea that the countries of the world have agreed on is to make it illegal to do anything that puts too great an economic stress on the rescuing function. It is OK with me.
Try to mount a poorly-planned and poorly-funded journey to the South Pole and the same thing will happen to you if they catch you--for the same reason.
I wonder if someone can do some back-of-the-envelope maths to figure out how much energy (calories) he would need to burn to cross the Atlantic, and therefore how much food he would need. I suspect his voyage isn't possible, even in calm weather, because the amount of energy required increases the amount of food required, which increases the weight, which increases the amount of food... a rocket liftoff problem with no solution.
One could form an impressive list of the ways he would certainly die, there's always drowning, exposure, sleep deprivation, thirst, hunger and all of the intricacies that could be grouped under catabolism processes.
The seafaring types might have a definitive answer.
MREs are only meant to be eaten for up to three weeks, but casting caution to the winds . . .
At four MREs per day (510 to 740 grams ea.), plus six liters of fresh water, one week supply would weigh 60 kg. Making five knots for 10 hours per day would be generous. At that blistering velocity, 4500nm would take thirteen weeks, needing 780kg of food & water. Which would prevent his wheel from turning. Of course, if he knew how to plot a course, he'd have the winds at his back.
> "My goal is to not only raise money for homeless people, raise money for the Coast Guard, raise money for the police department, raise money for the fire department," he told WOFL-TV in Orlando in 2021.
> "They are in public service, they do it for safety, and they help other people."
This guy would have died if he managed to get off shore enough to be past anybody noticing him. He'd be blown along by the winds mostly, being so high and light. So if he didn't plan it well, he has no chance. And by the article, he didn't plan at all.
Check out "Naufragé volontaire : Sans vivres sur l'Atlantique" by Alain Bombard[0] if you want to read what a crossing on a small vessel entails.
65 comments
[ 5.4 ms ] story [ 107 ms ] thread> [US Coast Guard] officers determined Baluchi was conducting a manifestly unsafe voyage," the criminal complaint says.
Since when is it illegal to do things that are unsafe in America? Why can I own a gun and fireworks and liquor and gas stoves and toxic chemicals then?
> Officials said he refused to step off the vessel and threatened to kill himself. He also claimed that he had a bomb on board, according to court papers.
Sounds about right for Floridaman vibes.
Vs. this guy's "water wheel" seems to fairly-mostly avoid those issues, if the CG could just say "YOYO" and forget about him.
This sounds like something adults should be allowed to opt out of. As long as the rest of us can be mature enough to not call for heads when some of them inevitably die, there shouldn’t be moral hazard. (Or maybe you’re rescued but you foot the entire bill.)
If a person were on top of a tall building wearing a bed sheet as a cape, letting them jump would be a similar moral issue in my eyes.
If this person was warned that he would not be rescued and the next day sent out a distress signal, do you really think coast guard and other agencies would ignore the call for help?
Arizona's stupid motorist law, which "states that any motorist who becomes stranded after driving around barricades to enter a flooded stretch of roadway may be charged for the cost of their rescue," is the model legislation here [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stupid_motorist_law
Of all the stupid things regular people can do to add strain/cost to the united states' social systems, "unsafe voyage" seems pretty low on the list, both in cost and frequency. I'd guess that injuries as a result of accidental gun discharge and/or fireworks easily 10x-100x yearly spend on search and rescue.
> Plus too-trusting friends & family who are along for the ride on their SS Davey Jones, collisions with other boats, cleaning up the wreckage and oil slicks, etc., etc.
I am not arguing that unsafe voyage is a bad idea. I am arguing that it's out of character for this country to ban a specific bad idea due to safety.
Fireworks are illegal in many states. Guns are regulated and there's widespread efforts for more.
And there is constant advocacy for stronger restrictions/bans.
The point is, we do restrict people's actions on fireworks and guns in order to prevent larger costs. They are not a counter example for why the Coast Guard should have done nothing in this case.
Presumably if he’d chartered a tug to drop him off in international waters he could’ve been clear of the coast guard.
> Officials said he refused to step off the vessel and threatened to kill himself. He also claimed that he had a bomb on board, according to court papers.
> On 1 September, he eventually surrendered and abandoned his vessel after being brought to a Coast Guard base in Miami.
> Officials later determined that the "bomb" had been fake.
> He is now facing federal charges of obstruction of a boarding, and violation of a Captain of the Port order.
He wasn't arrested for an unsafe vessel, he was arrested for everything else it appears.
No amount of “he made his own adult decision” is going to fix the optics of not helping his family on CNN begging the state to bring daddy's half-eaten remains back for a proper burial.
Society is not okay with that.
dude wants to try to run across the ocean in a hamster wheel? fuck yeah, let’s cheer him on.
...
> On or about August 27, 2023, the USCG Cutter VALIANT continued to make efforts to disembark BALUCHI utilizing their small boat. However, BALUCHI displayed two knives and threatened to hurt himself if officers boarded the Vessel. Moreover, BALUCHI threatened to blow himself up, along with the Vessel. USCG officers believed this to be a valid threat, as they observed BALUCHI holding wires in his hand. USCG officers contacted the U.S. Navy Explosive Ordinance Disposal Unit at Kings Bay, Georgia to determine blast and fragmentation radius of the alleged bomb.
> On or about August 28, 2023, the USCG Cutter CAMPBELL arrived on scene with the USCG Cutter VALIANT to provide support. The USCG Cutter CAMPBELL launched a small boat to attempt to deliver food, water, and predictions of the incoming hurricane to BALUCHI. USCG officers again ordered BALUCHI off the Vessel, but he again refused. It was then that BALUCHI informed the USCG officers that the bomb was not real.
The complaint goes on. The Coast Guard spent a week on this guy. Seems like he wasn't obeying the rules and earned his arrest at a minimum. All of this while a hurricane was on its way.
the imploded submarine was consistently told it was unsafe, but also had managed to make several successful dives. it did have failsafes, albeit woefully ineffective, and a crew on a ship hanging out above. they had real operational plans and experience, they just cut corners on everything and eventually it went bad.
Countless human hours spent preventing someone from doing something that would harm no one but himself.
There are probably good Samaritan laws forcing public officers to provide "help" if they are informed of a situation and no way out of it. A family member that is a cop said to never tell anything in good faith to a cop because then they are forced by law to follow procedures, even if they don't want to otherwise they are the ones getting arrested/fired/suspended.
Is a danger for himself but also to other ships that could crash against that structure. The sea is a busy road and this thing can easily sink a small boat carried by the wind, or crush somebody if carried by a wave onboard of a bigger ship and falling over a worker.
Plus recent spy issues of people mapping sensible locations while pretending to be a lost tourist, that must be addressed.
Saving his life is just the cherry on top. To save the rescue team to risk their lives later is the main goal. The man is an idiot that should know better and respect the sea.
With ocean currents, winds, etc., it seems vastly unlikely his contraption would have traveled any distance the ocean didn't allow anyway.
For those not familiar with U. S. geography, New York is north of Florida, not south.
Given that this is his third/fourth attempt at hamster wheeling in the Atlantic they probably knew exactly who it was when they got the call.
> Officials said he refused to step off the vessel and threatened to kill himself. He also claimed that he had a bomb on board, according to court papers.
Fortunately he did not actually have a bomb on board.
The imploded submersible guy was well known in the industry to be cutting corners and playing fast and loose, but had done successful dives in the past, and had a boat there to support him. Playing fast and loose in a sub will eventually get you killed -- and it did -- but there was at least something of a track record.
Why does the coastguard have jurisdiction? Because it was launched from the USA? At what point is your vehicle a ship? i.e. is a surfboard a ship?
Oceanic trade generates great economic value and requires seafarers. Seafaring is inherently dangerous, but the rate of death of seafarers is much less than it would be if it weren't for coast guards, one of whose main functions is rescuing seafarers in distress. This rescuing function is expensive, so one of the rules of the sea that the countries of the world have agreed on is to make it illegal to do anything that puts too great an economic stress on the rescuing function. It is OK with me.
Try to mount a poorly-planned and poorly-funded journey to the South Pole and the same thing will happen to you if they catch you--for the same reason.
The seafaring types might have a definitive answer.
At four MREs per day (510 to 740 grams ea.), plus six liters of fresh water, one week supply would weigh 60 kg. Making five knots for 10 hours per day would be generous. At that blistering velocity, 4500nm would take thirteen weeks, needing 780kg of food & water. Which would prevent his wheel from turning. Of course, if he knew how to plot a course, he'd have the winds at his back.
Not that this Florida man had any chance of repeating the achievement.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Bombard
> "They are in public service, they do it for safety, and they help other people."
Check out "Naufragé volontaire : Sans vivres sur l'Atlantique" by Alain Bombard[0] if you want to read what a crossing on a small vessel entails.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Bombard