Rescuing Stranded Boaters & Issuing Speeding Tickets - Life On A Police Boat (With Video)

If the captain of the Clinton Police boat looks familiar – it’s because long-time Clinton police corporal Jack Eagan, who supposedly retired after 42 years on the force, is back as a supernumerary (part-time police office) with the department.

Eagan, who began working at the as a part-time and full-time dispatcher in July of 1968, retired a year ago this month.

Eagan’s job these days is getting the police boat, a 25-foot Almar manufactured in Tacoma, Washington, back in the water. He will be patrolling Clinton Harbor and the Hammonasset River and training other officers for boat patrol.

This should be an everyday event for the police boat but it is not.  It was out of service all last summer (fiscal year 2009-2010 which ends this June 30) due to budget cuts.

For the new fiscal year which begins July 1 – the boat is back in service.

Training is winding down, he said. All three of the full-time officers have their boating licenses and are experienced boaters – having owned a boat or having grown up in a boating family.

“A lot of what I am teaching them deals with the idiosyncrasies of the Clinton Harbor,” said Eagan, a long-time boater and shoreline resident himself.

Learning to coordinate efforts with other emergency agencies such as the Coast Guard, fire departments and neighboring police departments, is another role of the police boat crew.

“But the safety of boaters is our number one goal,” said Eagan. “Our purpose is to educate and make the waters safe for the public.”

The most common calls include rescuing water-skiers who ski too close to shore or another boat, locating overdue boaters (those who went out on their boat for two hours but have been gone for five), and towing or rescuing those who get caught on a sand bar as well as those who motor out too far and run out of fuel.

Eagan remembers a rescue many years ago involving a family on a sailboat.

“They hit a sandbar and it laid the boat on its side,” he said. “We rescued the wife and two daughters first and then the husband.”

To this day, said Eagan, when one of the daughters sees him she will thank him.

Some emergency calls are fairly easy fixes, he recalls.  One time, a boater believed his boat was sinking as water was pouring in.

“He and those on the boat were bailing the water out of the boat as fast as they could with not a lot of success,” said Eagan.

As it turned out, once Eagan investigated the engine room, he discovered that the pump was not working due to a busted engine intake water hose.

“As fast as they were trying to get water out of the boat, the engine was pulling water in the boat,” he said.

Speeders are a common sight on the waters, said Eagan. Just like the roads, people go too fast in their boats as they do their cars.

“We give out about 60 speeding tickets a year,” he said.

With the ticket, boat owners receive a free copy of the Department of Environmental Protection Rules of Boating, also called the Connecticut Boater’s Guide.

“We all need to keep it safe out here,” he said.