Many of the boats Sandy Island residents use to travel a 300 foot canal from the Sandy Island public boat landing to the island, have registration issues and structural damages, a news13 investigation uncovered.
Of the 20 boats parked at the Sandy Island boat landing in Georgetown County last Tuesday, 10 either had expired state registration decals or missing identification numbers required by state law.
Many of the boats at the landing showed signs of damage to boat hulls and the floorboards.
The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources frequently tickets boaters with expired or missing registrations and conduct periodic boat safety equipment checks, according to DNR Lt. Robert McCullough.
DNR and the United States Coast Guard along with the Georgetown County Sheriff’s office patrol the waters around Georgetown County looking to enforce boater safety laws.
Federal law allows only one of the three agencies, the USCG, to pull a boat off the water because of concerns over vessel safety.
The DNR has limited authority to terminate voyages, “We can't end a vessel from voyage, we can't stop a vessel from voyage; normally. There are circumstances if somebody is impaired. If it's endangering; if they're acting that way. If they don't have proper safety equipment, we can take them back to the hill until they get that,” McCullough told News13.
McCullough said the DNR would post officers at all public boat landings in the state, but with limited resources, that would be impossible, “There's 3,000 miles of coastline that we're responsible for in South Carolina and we don't have but 234 officers statewide, so that's a lot to deal with. We do what we can, we get out there, we're out there enforcing it,” McCullough said.
Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Neil Johnson said his deputies do issue tickets to boaters, but said the sheriff’s office’s marine patrol did not conduct any boater safety checkpoints last year and did not issue any citations to Sandy Island residents in 2008.
Three Sandy Island residents died when their boat sank in the 300 foot canal leading from the boat landing to the island in February.
Authorities said none of the three were wearing life jackets.
DNR officers warn that boating without safety items like life jackets, is a gamble not worth taking, “Hopefully through this and other tragedies that happen around the state, people learn and know that they need to keep their life jackets with them and wear them. Life jackets save lives,” McCullough said.
As far as the conditions of the boat that sank in February, McCullough said the cause of the accident remains under investigation, but warns boaters that it’s the boat’s owner who is ultimately responsible if they own a boat that some would consider unsafe, “Every vehicle, every boat, every vessel has a purpose and it needs to be suitable for that purpose, so people need to think about that. If it's suitable for your purpose, you need to make choices.”
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