Ships Ahoy!

Harbormaster keeps the peace and ensures boating safety.

By Clyde Weiss

MARSHFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS

Pleasure craft, lobster boats and commercial harpoon vessels that hunt giant bluefin tuna come and go from Green Harbor, a busy little fishing port 29 miles south of Boston. Watching them all is George Burgess.

Green Harbor is his domain. A member of Local 1700 (Council 93), Burgess may be the only harbormaster who’s a member of AFSCME. He is also chairman of the board of the Massachusetts Harbormasters Association.

Tuna boats, also called stick or harpoon boats, are heading out to sea. When they return, giant bluefin, some weighing upwards of 600 pounds, will be hauled onto the dock for buyers to inspect. It’s the harbormaster who inspects the fishermen’s vessels and makes sure their operators behave themselves in a port used by all kinds of boaters.

Fishermen can be "very aggressive folks," says the 64-year-old Burgess. "Sometimes they get a little excited when they get a fish and come in [to the harbor] a little too fast," making other boaters bounce around in their wake and possibly causing damage or injury.

EYES AND EARS. A harbormaster is more than the person in charge of moorings, or the enforcer of boat traffic laws. "For the Coast Guard, they are often the eyes and ears that we depend on to bring us news of an incident and, ultimately, to conduct a search and rescue," says Commander Susan Bibeau, deputy group commander of the Coast Guard in Boston. "They are often the first person we call when we get a report of somebody missing — because they do have such extensive local knowledge of their own area."

Frequently, they’re also the first to respond to emergencies. "Even though they’ll send out the Coast Guard, these people are so dedicated that they’d actually go out and help those individuals themselves," says John DeGutis Jr., director of the Plymouth Police Academy, which offers a certification program for harbormasters. "I was a lobsterman for 23 years and I always had a tremendous amount of respect for them, because sometimes it will get really dangerous out there."

Says Burgess: "If we get a distress call, then we’re going to go out right then. We’re not going to wait for anybody."

A crew of 10 assistant harbormasters — some of whom are paramedics or certified ocean divers — are available to perform on-the-scene rescue work. Burgess runs the "Com Center," a communications facility crammed with radios, phones, faxes and computers that allow Burgess and his colleagues up and down the coast to communicate with one another and coordinate emergency responses.

A harbormaster is more than the sum of his parts, which are many. He’s the harbor’s chief law enforcement officer, boat inspector and general guardian of the waterfront. He oversees boating safety, promotes harbor courtesy and even ensures that commercial clam and lobster fishing is conducted according to the laws and regulations. "We’re not firefighters and we’re not policemen," he says. "We’re trained mariners, and that’s our job — to see that the waterways are kept safe."

TRAINING BOOST. Burgess has been harbormaster since 1988. He was a marine surveyor before that, inspecting boats for people who wanted to buy them. When the town’s previous harbormaster retired, he applied. Like many other Massachusetts harbormasters, however, Burgess lacked the law enforcement background that has become so essential to the job. Realiz-ing this, he and a group of fellow harbormasters persuaded the Massachusetts Criminal Justice Training Council, the Massachusetts Maritime Academy and the state’s Chiefs of Police Association to help establish a certification program.

Conducted by the Plymouth Police Academy, the 351-hour program has certified more than 60 harbormasters. Maritime issues such as boating safety cover half the program. The rest encompasses law enforcement, including apprehension and arrest, alcohol enforcement, accident investigation, court procedures and citation writing. They may not be policemen, but harbormasters "have more power than a police officer in searches and seizures," says DeGutis. "They can go into areas that police officers can’t" without having a warrant.

Despite the danger inherent in the job, many harbormasters, including Burgess, are prohibited by their municipalities from carrying firearms. At least one harbormaster has resigned in protest over the issue and four assistant harbormasters in Hingham, Mass., quit last June because the town’s selectmen told them to stop carrying weapons and to dress in golf shirts to appear friendlier to boaters.

Burgess, who is certified to carry firearms, contends that harbormasters are, and should be treated as, law enforcement officers and thus should have authority to bear arms. Meanwhile, he carries out his duties without a weapon even though his job can place him in harm’s way.

DANGEROUS WATERS. While some boaters and commercial fishermen may see the harbormaster as an unwanted intruder into their personal or commercial affairs, Burgess says his precautions are necessary to protect the public. Take safety inspections: "If they’re going to be operating after sunset, their lights all have to work. We also want to see that they have proper life jackets on board, and that they’re accessible. ... My attitude is that we want to find problems in the beginning. We don’t want to fix a bad situation."

Commercial fishermen respect his authority. "They’re very serious about what they’re doing," says Burgess. "They make a lot of money in this tuna business, so they don’t want to lose anything or have their license taken away. They pretty much behave themselves."

But private boaters can be a headache. "People don’t know how to operate boats," DeGutis says. "They might buy a $500,000 boat and they barely know how to turn on the engine, let alone the radar systems and the GPS [global positioning system]. It’s dangerous out there."

More dangerous than the harbor are 27 miles of inland rivers that Burgess and his team also patrol. "Nine people have lost their lives there over the past few years," Burgess says of the rivers’ perilous inlet, where geography and weather combine with potentially tragic consequences. "Unless you know your way around those conditions, you can find yourself in a very serious situation."

That’s why harbormasters are so important. "I’m just grateful they’re out there," says the Coast Guard’s Bibeau. "It makes our job a whole lot easier."

When George Burgess is not "out there," he still can’t shake the sea. At home, he builds scale-model wooden ships from the original blueprints, in addition to spending time with his wife, Punnee, and their three grown children.

But one sea-related activity is definitely not on Burgess’ agenda. "I don’t have the patience for fishing," he relates. "If I was going to sit around all day with a piece of string in the water and a piece of dead fish on the end of it, it would be time for me to go to the happy hunting ground. I’d much rather be making a model ship."