The New Police Boat

The following is from the local newspaper, the Grand Haven Tribune:

It's been several years since there has been a true firefighting boat in the Tri-Cities area and Ottawa County Marine Patrol officials and area firefighters could barely contain their excitement during an unofficial unveiling of the boat Monday afternoon at the Pettys Bayou boat launch.

"There's not a lot of fire boats around," said Spring Lake Township Fire Chief Rick Nuvill, who went along for an introductory ride. "Ludington just got the same boat. Muskegon Fire Department has one."

Both Spring Lake Township and Grand Haven fire departments used to have fire-fighting boats, but they eventually became too expensive to maintain, and there was no money to replace motors or get a new boat, Nuvill said. Spring Lake quit using their boat a five or six years ago.

"We've had to fight boat fires from land," Nuvill said.

To do that, Nuvill said crews ran long hose lines out across docks, which happened with a barge fire a few years ago. "It can be a very dangerous situation for firefighters," he added.

The new boat, a Firehawk 26 made by Harbor Guard of California, was purchased with a $229,373 Port Security grant requested by Ottawa County Marine Patrol Sgt. Keith Koeman in 2010. Some of the fittings on the boat came from the previous year's grant.

The water cannon is the red thingy.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Police
• boat
• fire
• ship

[alaricdogface]

Homeland security money is awesome.