Hi Rowing Friends,

On Saturday morning our quad was stopped by a Patrol boat on
Horsetooth and asked to return to dock because we did not have PFDs
in the boat.
From some research and info from Deb McCabe at Boulder Rowing, I
discovered that the Coast Guard has explicitly exempted rowing shells
from the requirement to carry PFDs for all rowers in the boat. (The
exemptions were justified largely because the boats aren't built for
them, and there have been very few deaths from rowing accidents
without PFDs). For your reference a link to the document is given at
the bottom of this posting.

Please note that this does not exempt us from safe behavior on the
reservoir, and if you choose to wear or bring along a PFD, you are
welcome to. (It will however make life more comfortable as we row).

Since rowing on Horsetooth has been pretty invisible until recently,
I'm sure the patrol is not knowlegeable about this exemption. We
should expect to need to spend some time educating them to get this
worked out. I've sent an email to the Larimer County Parks director
about this, and I'll leave a copy of the regulation in the quad boat
storage bin, so that we'll have a document to reference when this
comes up again.

http://www.washingtonwatchdog.org/documents/cfr/title33/part175.html#1
75.11 (See Section 175.17.3.c).

See you on the water...Molly