Operation Paddle Smart
When the Coast Guard or local emergency responders receive a report or discovers a paddle craft adrift, there is no way to determine if the vessel was washed off of a beach during high tide or was separated from its owner during the course of a boating accident. In these situations, the Coast Guard has to assume the owner is in trouble and needs assistance until it can find evidence to support otherwise. As a result the Coast Guard and local Harbormasters spend hundreds of th
