Coast Guard response surprising

I just finished reading Adrift which, of course, is the book written by Steve Callahan about 76 days that he spent at Sea in an Avon life raft after his boat sunk during a solo Atlantic crossing. A great read—HIGHLY recommended. As I was reading it, I found myself thinking how great it would be to have a running commentary from Doug about the situation and various decisions—although that could lead to some pretty heated discussions at the next Board of Directors meeting. <br><br>Chris, a huge surprise to me in reading the book was the treatment that the Callahan family received at the hands of the U.S. Coastguard. Recognizing that in this particular situation there was little they could do to effect a rescue, it seems that their response to the family was callous, at best. Any ideas why? Other reports I have heard and read about of Coast Guard activity present a much different and more positive picture. <br><br>Robb

Robb, I totally agree. The "excuse" is that the Coast Guard is horribly underfunded ( always has been) and overburdened. I may be prejudiced, but our smallest service delivers more "bang for the buck" than just about any other government agency. That is not to say there are not bad judgement calls or even gross incompetence. I was once on midwatch, manning our rescue coordination center. I picked up a distress call in our sister lifeboat unit's area. I called him without response ( the watch was asleep!) I hit our alarm and then caught hell because it wasn't our area. When I finally explained there was no response the two duty coxswains began arguing over whos turn it was to go. I assigned another seaman to my watch, grabbed a crew and we got underway. I raised Airstation Astoria ( Oregon) and got a helo up ( One good thing about small outfits; I knew the C.O. from previous Alaskan duty.) When we finally arrived ( meanwhile a duty driver was dispatched to the other station to find out what was going on there) the boat was capsized. My swimmer entered the capsized vessel and rescued the two crew.Our C.O. round filed my promotion papers, rejected my recommendation the swimmer receive the Coast Guard medal and gave us extra duty. Like I said, it's a small service. I called my old C.O. He swopped sleepy head ( now busted to E1) with my swimmer and got him the medal, and gave me my icebreaker so I could see the Antarctic.