Over the 50 years I’ve been fishing out of Sakonnet I have seen countless boats stuck in these traps and not only inexperienced boaters, but well equipped vessels with state of the art electronics — I have even seen the (coast guard) and Navy vessels fall victim to the twine.”

Little Compton Harbormaster Mike Massa

You get these guys out there, and it happened to me when I was a kid ... If you were out there in the fog and you didn’t know where you were, you’d shut the engine off and listen to the bell out at the islands or the one at the river, 2A. It’s a tremendous aid to navigation.”

Gary Mataronas

They defeated a similar plan nearly a decade ago. Now, Little Compton mariners hope for the same result as the United States Coast Guard plans, again, to remove what locals say is a crucial navigational aid one mile west of the entrance to Sakonnet Harbor.

Even in this age of electronic navigation and high tech GPS tracking, they say the bright red ‘middle buoy,’ officially known as Sakonnet River Bell Buoy 2A, is vital and needs to be kept for the safety of young sailors out of Sakonnet Yacht Club, fishermen lost in the fog and weary sailors who need to duck into the harbor in foul weather.

“It’s really a safety issue,” longtime lobsterman and Little Compton Town Council member Gary Mataronas said.

“You get these guys out there, and it happened to me when I was a kid ... If you were out there in the fog and you didn’t know where you were, you’d shut the engine off and listen to the bell out at the islands or the one at the river, 2A. It’s a tremendous aid to navigation.”

Coast guard tries again

But it’s time has come, Coast Guard officials say.

Citing the cost of maintenance and the growth of GPS-based positioning technology, officials have proposed removing it and approximately 350 other navigational aids up and down the northeastern seaboard, from Maine to New York. Members of the public have until mid-June to comment on the proposal.

The coast guard did the same in 2016, when officials proposed removing 2A and another buoy known affectionately as ‘the hooter’ for the sound it made as it bobbed up and down in the chop. Then as now, local mariners protested and while the hooter was ultimately removed, the coast guard agreed to leave 2A in place.

Apart from the growing number of inexperienced boaters on the water and the improvement of positioning technology, not much has changed out there since then, Mataronas said. There are still unprepared boaters, still young Sakonnet Yacht Club sailors who don’t have electronic equipment aboard, still plenty of fog. And the large fish traps off the Sakonnet coast, of which 2A was particularly useful in helping boaters avoid, still go in every summer.

Locals concerned

By the time town council members wrote to Senator Jack Reed last week to ask for federal assistance in convincing coast guard officials to change their minds, opposition here had already come from other fronts.

Sakonnet Point is a dangerous place, yacht club commodore Bruce Chafee wrote to the coast guard in imploring officials to reconsider.

The point “combines open ocean, a rocky coast, and fog. That’s why they built a lighthouse there! Our open, southern exposure provides regular 4-6-foot rollers, with 15-knot generated chop on top. Our coast is rocky and irregular. Our cooler water produces frequent summer fog. Into these conditions we send our 9 (to) 17-year-old kids. They learn to sail in tough conditions, and also to rely on navigational aids and bearings. Their crucial aid is Bell Buoy 2A.”

More established boaters rely on it too, he added, as 2A, dead west of the harbor, is used as a primary reference point — “passing mariners seeking shelter between Buzzards Bay and Newport Harbor use Bell Buoy 2A to find either harbor.”

The fish traps that go in every summer are another matter, added Little Compton Harbormaster Mike Massa, and are another reason he believes 2A should stay.

The Point Trap Co.’s two fish traps have gone in every summer for decades and extend out into the Sakonnet River some 500 feet — one attached directly to the breakwater, and the other to the beach approximately 400 feet to the north.

“Over the 50 years I’ve been fishing out of Sakonnet I have seen countless boats stuck in these traps and not only inexperienced boaters, but well equipped vessels with state of the art electronics — I have even seen the (coast guard) and Navy vessels fall victim to the twine.”

The traps’ placement makes it impossible to set a course directly to the mouth of the harbor, and “essentially they create a runway of sorts.”

That is why 2A is essential, he wrote — “the entrance to Sakonnet lies exactly due east of the 2A buoy at exactly one mile. This makes giving instructions to the many transient boaters visiting our harbor quite easy. Many of these boaters have never even seen a fish trap, let alone navigate around one.”

While the traps are on the charts, Mataronas added, “who reads charts anymore?”

Coast guard plan

Matthew Stuck, the Coast Guard’s first district chief of waterways management, said the latest proposal comes as the USCG works to "rightsize" its navigational aids, many of which predate GPS technology.

Removing navigational aids no longer deemed necessary, he wrote in a Coast Guard notice, "will result in the most sustainable navigation risk reduction to support and complement modern mariners" while delivering "effective, economical service (at) acceptable cost."

Other buoys nearby have been targeted for removal as well, including one about two miles south of the entrance to the Westport Harbor federal channel, and a host up and down Narragansett Bay.

Members of the public have until Friday, June 13, to respond to the proposal. E-mails can be sent to the Coast Guard at AD01-SMB-DPWPubliccomments@uscg.mil.