 I'm Chief Petty Officer Andrew Cohen, C-O-H-E-N, United States Coast Guard. I'm the Command Center Supervisor here at Coast Guard Sector Jacksonville. I wanted to speak to you guys a little bit about National Boater Safety Week and Hoke's Mayday Calls, letting you know the Coast Guard annually prosecutes roughly 18 confirmed Hoke's Mayday Calls, about 121 suspected calls, and it is punishable at the $5,000 civil fines, $250,000 in criminal fines, along with restitution for all resources used. In addition to that, it also does put not only our crews in danger and harms way, sending them out on unneeded missions, but can also pull the Coast Guard away from legitimate calls of mariners in distress. This is not to deter mariners from calling for distress or for help if they do believe they need assistance, and you will not be charged with any fees or fines if you are in legitimate need of assistance. How much money does it cost when you send your crews out? Depending on the resource, it costs anywhere from roughly right around $2,000, all the up to around $10,000, depending on the resource being a surface unit or an aircraft unit. And we just had a distress call this week, can you talk to the fact? We do not believe that call was a hoax call at this time, there's nothing to lead us to believe that, nothing in our case documentation or paper that leads to believe that. But you never found the core fishermen order for you? We have not found a fisherman order for you at this time. Something that calls also, you're not the only ones out there, you're also pulling away from local resources as well? Yes. We do use local resources, especially in our area, it's very unique. With the intercoastal waterway, the rivers, and our offshore capabilities, we rely on the counties and local police agencies quite a bit and also puts them out there and takes them away from their other responsibilities as well. You were talking earlier, because you can't not go, you have to go. Any call we receive of any cry for help, plea of Mayday, or anything of a mariner believe in their distress across the radio, we will always respond and take action on it. We've done this part of state voting, we've also done this responsible voting, is that part of it as well? The fooling is another part of that. To kind of tie into the safe voting week, I can always say, you know, make sure you have proper life-saving equipment on board. Make sure you have your personal flotation devices. Make sure you know how to use them. Let family and friends know where you're going. Always have a backup plan. Make sure you have enough fuel on board, you know how to use your radio properly, your radio works, GPS, how to read your GPS. Because the more information you can give us, the easier it is for us to locate you, get to you, and the quicker we can respond to you. How many hoax calls did you say the Coast Guard received last year, and how many suspected? For last, specifically, I'm not 100% sure. On those numbers, it roughly estimates about 18 annually. And then it's 121 suspected. Do you know about how many of those were in the Jacksonville or the First Coast area? Right now, on the Jacksonville area, the only one we have is if we have one confirmed hoax, we get done in the last year. It's also got to be frustrating for those people who take their time out to go search, just talk about that, how they keep an aspect. It can be frustrating. Because everyone does this because they enjoy saving people. They want to save people. You want to go out and you want to help people. That's the backbone of the Coast Guard. So it can be frustrating. The last thing it ever wants is for a member to get complacent or something because they keep hearing the same person calling for help that really isn't helping, going out there and not finding someone. That would always be a fear of mine for some of you. Receiving complacency from that. Folks, I guess when you guys run them down, I guess probably you don't find them. But if you do, I understand what they're doing, to understand their implications of what they're doing. Some do, some don't. I've been in other areas throughout the country where we have caught legitimate hoaxes. We've had caught people with the radio in their hand actually. We've also, sometimes it's children playing on the radio. It could be your child in the backyard who, there have been responsible parents teaching them how to utilize the radio, how to use the radio, how to call for help if they actually need to. But mom and dad could be in the kitchen making dinner and they're outside in the backyard and then the next thing you know, they're on the radio, not necessarily understanding their ramifications. They may not have intent to deceive, may not be trying to mislead anyone, but they come across the radio. We hear it, but we don't know and we will respond. Are the emergency channels there for a reason? Yes, yes. Can you explain the difference between a hoax call and a suspected hoax call and how you define that? To lead to a hoax, we look at it as there's intent to deceive. We're suspected or confirmed. Confirmed hoax call would be we catch a person in the act, catch a person afterwards and they admit to it. Someone sees them, usually as a lengthy investigation. A lot of times we will work with the FCC to help us locate members, local law enforcement, Coast Guard investigative services and it's usually catching the person and then pursuing criminal aspects against them. Suspected hoax is, everything's leading up to it, possibly thinking, okay, this could be a hoax. It may be we're getting lines of bearing off the radio towers pointing over land. Something along those lines could be what's said in the call possibly and it's not really adding up things along those lines and then suspected hoax would be something where we're still searching but for our case documentation we're calling it suspected hoax. Anything else you'd like to say? Just like to remind all mariners to be safe on the water. Memorial Day weekend is coming up. It is a high boating weekend. Come to Florida. Take your personalization devices with you and practice safe boating please.