Town of Hempstead Dept. Conservation and Waterways - Bay Constables (New York: law, legally)
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Bay Constable harassed me and my wife after a nice afternoon on our waverunner. We were coming back into our canal and were startled by sirens and bay constable boat asking us to pull over. We had been traveling at 5MPH for about a minute already and were about 300 feet into the canal. We were referred to an orange and white 5MPH buoy floating about 300 yards out into East Bay and told that we passed that buoy at more than 5MPH.
There are several issues in using that buoy as some sort of a reference point to establishing where the 5MPH zone is.
1) Every year the Town of Hempstead anchors these buoys in East Bay within the navigable waters of the state of New York, within the United States of America
2) These buoys do not appear on the NOAA chart published by the US Government
3) The GPS coordinates of these buoys change from year to year; it seems they keep moving from the actual 5MPH zone located in the canal, further and further into the body of water known as East Bay; given the current trend, it seems they will be at Jones Beach in a few years with all of East Bay becoming a 5MPH zone!
4) The Town of Hempstead places these buoys illegally, as they have not obtained a permit from New York State, nor have they obtained permission from the United States Coast Guard to place buoys in navigable waters
5) New York state law provides that a powerboat shall not be operated in excess of 5MPH within 100 feet of shore, floating dock, anchored boat, or swimmer.
6) The 100 foot, 5MPH contour defined by shoreline and floating docks dictates that any legitimately placed 5MPH buoy would be about 200 feet up the canal, rather than way out where these illegitimate buoys are currently placed
7) Smart people know when there is a shakedown franchise in operation and it creates an attitude of callousness and class of scofflaws
Why not enforce the 5MPH within the canal where large wakes destroy homeowners docks and bulkheads and threaten swimmers and kayakers, rather than harassing and trying to entrap law-abiding boaters out in the bay.
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