the 50′ Sailing vessel Strange Situation (above) was expected in Lunenburg on the 25th but did not arrive. The vessel departed Bermuda May 16th, with 3 persons on board.

Earlier today the Joint Rescue Coordination Center released the following two tweets, indicating that a search was underway for a missing sailboat, but no furether information was provided.

thanks the the US Coast Guard, who became involved in the search, we learned complete details about the vessel.

the CCGS Earl grey is searching off the coast of Nova Scotia, between Shelburne and Lunenburg.

Update: the vessel was located in Clarke’s Harbour yesterday evening, and is safe. they have updated the destination with a new ETA.

Transport Canada issued the tweet above as part of safe boating week. Its very wrong.

A PCOC per the Canada Shipping Act regulations, is required to operate any pleasure craft. The link in the tweet indicates operators of any pleasure craft with a motor require a PCOC, even if the motor is not in use (ie a sailing vessel) or is a electric trolling motor. The PCOC is proof a person have the basic knowledge to operate a vessel.

So where does this tweet come from? well boats with motors greater then 10 horsepower are required to be licensed. this is synonymous with registering your car at the DMV. a boat license has nothing to do with your ability to operate a vessel, but is issued to the vessel itself.

this is why there are 9.9HP outboard motors – to avoid the licensing requirement.

Many people casually refer to the PCOC as a boat licence, much the same way you have a drivers licence. Transport Canada took the basic requirement for boat licensing, and applied it as the base requirement for a PCOC.

UPDATE: the tweet has been deleted and corrected to remove “of 10HP or more”

the yacht Ziggy tied up on the waterfront Saturday morning. it was taking on Fuel.

Ziggy is an Ocean Alexander 35R and was launched in 2021 from the shipyard in Taiwan. She is comes in at 199 Gt. and sleeps 10 guests in 5 cabins, and has a crew of 5 (in 3 Cabins)

registered in the US, the vessel sailed from Newport RI. she is reportedly owned by Michigan couple Bonnie and Harold Zeigler, who own the Ziegler Auto group, which own 78 car dealerships and other related businesses wit a combined 1.7 billion in sales.