Should adventurers pay for their own rescues?

By: Flood - 10th August 2004 at 23:30

A drop in the ocean?
By Jennifer Quinn
BBC News Online Magazine

It costs a boatload of cash to rescue sailors from the ocean. Should people who have tried daring jaunts at sea be made to pay when they make it back, or is it just tradition to sail to the rescue?

It was 1998 and Richard Branson was in a hot air balloon over the Pacific Ocean. He and two other men were floating well above the waves - at least for a while.

Hampered by bad weather, they were aiming for the Hawaiian Islands, and missed. Quite badly, in fact - by more than 200 miles.

So instead of being able to make a safe, soft landing on one of the idyllic tropical islands, Mr Branson and friends made a hard one in the angry sea and required the services of the United States Coast Guard, who steamed out into the Pacific Ocean to fetch them.

The rescue operation cost US taxpayers more than $130,000, which is a fairly serious amount of money for regular folk, but which is literally a drop in the ocean for an entrepreneur like Mr Branson, founder of the Virgin group of companies.

Though Mr Branson made a donation to the coast guard in thanks, the splash landing sparked a debate, which continues today, over who should pay to rescue adventurers from themselves when their quests go wrong.

Inspiration or inconvenience?

Should the taxpayers of any nation foot the bill for swashbucklers like Mr Branson or the crew of the Pink Lady, the British foursome who were trying to row across the Atlantic Ocean?

Some say people who try bold trips should be made to pay the costs of getting them out of trouble. Others point to the spirit of adventure, and say their derring-do enriches us all.

It's estimated the cost of the rescue of the Pink Lady rowers was £120,000. Bob Barnsley, who managed the team from solid ground, defended the voyage - and the rescue.

"I believe it was worth it," he told the Independent. "None of them went out there to get rescued, just as no fisherman or merchant ship does.

"It was undertaken in the spirit of adventure, and it is people like these four guys that should motivate us all."

Still others - like the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, the government agency which looks after the UK's waters - say it's simply their job to go out into the ocean and bring back people in trouble.

It's a belief echoed by their sea-faring colleagues around the Atlantic. Both the Canadian and US Coast Guards say to charge people for rescues - adventurers, or ordinary folk - is anathema to what they do.

'Semper paratus'

The former commandant of the US Coast Guard defended the position just months after Mr Branson's Hawaiian splashdown.

"Why," Admiral James Loy hypothesised, "did the Coast Guard spend so much money to rescue a millionaire thrill-seeker without asking to be paid back?"

In a piece in the Washington Post, the admiral said it was because everyone in trouble, be they millionaires or refugees, should be treated with the same care.

"You won't hear any of my Coast Guard radio operators say, 'Roger, sir. I understand you're taking on water and preparing to abandon ship. Can you tell me your position and the number of a major credit card?'"

Spokespeople for the American and British rescue forces say the thinking behind this is simple: They don't want people to mull over whether or not they can afford a rescue - thinking they'll have to pay for it - and then get themselves into worse trouble.

"It's totally against the ethos and ethics of the organisation," says a spokesperson for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

"We'd rather people would contact us as soon as they realise they're having problems.

'Always ready'

"Obviously, the longer they stay out there - thinking they can't call us because there might be a charge - they stay out there longer and get themselves into greater trouble, which ultimately could mean greater trouble for the volunteer lifeboat crews when they go out."

The US Coast Guard - which includes "You have to go out, but you don't have to come back" as one of their catchphrases - spends nearly half a billion dollars on search and rescue operations.

Does derring-do do the business?

And that $467,000,000 doesn't include the cost of equipment, only things like fuel and salaries and other operating costs.

Because so many different agencies are involved in rescues, it's harder to put a figure to what the UK government spends on search and rescue, according to the Ministry of Defence.

In 2003-04, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency had a net operating cost of £105,095,000. The agency was called out more than 10,000 times to assist more than 25,000 people who were in trouble in UK waters.

Though people can donate to organisations like the RNLI, a charity, no one is asked to pay for their rescues either by them or by the coastguard or navy.

"It would be like being asked to contribute to the NHS if you have an operation," says a coastguard spokesperson.

"It's paid for out of your taxes. And it's a service provided by the UK government."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3549076.stm

Published: 2004/08/10 12:11:08 GMT

So should adventurers pay for their own rescues?
Should they be forced to cover any potential rescue in their insurance?
Should the rescue services - both government, military, and voluntary - be asked to assist when some mad fool decides to be the first to do something stupid like cross the Channel in an uncoverted bathtub with no plug?
Should all adventurers be forced to have a risk assessment on their venture?

Flood.™