KING COUNTY, Wash. — There’s a new boat patrolling Lake Sammamish. The King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) Marine Patrol unit is now training on a new 2023 Safe Boat manufactured in Bremerton.
They added a large monitor equipped with Forward Looking Infrared or Flir camera, radar, and navigational charts, giving them advanced capabilities for patrol, search and rescue, and recovery.
Sgt. Richard Barton and Deputy Kyle Broderson took KOMO News out on the new boat, to show us the new, advanced capabilities it offers.
The Washington State Parks Boating Program created six grants at $150,000 each. KSCO applied for and received one for this boat since they are the only marine unit patrolling Lake Sammamish.
“We are the only entity out, that is out here for five different entities on Lake Sammamish, Redmond, Bellevue, Issaquah, and unincorporated King County, none of them have a marine unit,” Barton explained.
They handle everything that happens on the lake; patrol, boating collisions, fatalities, rescues, recoveries, and even firefighting.
The sheriff’s office got the $150,000 grant for the boat, which comes with the stipulation that KCSO matches 25% of that. They did and the final cost of this new Safe Boat, with all the electronics and firefighting system on board, came to $187,000.0
This boat also has a design that better lends itself to the work the marine unit is doing with it.
“When we upgrade our equipment, it’s for that response capability of getting there fast getting there reliably,” said Barton.
It’s low gunnels and two low access points toward the stern of the boat that are just 8” off the water. That’s a good, low height for deputies to reach over and pull someone out of the water. They also have small ladders that can go there for divers to get in or out of the water.
The bow of the boat also opens with steps that fold down to the water, again for a diver to get in or out of the water or for someone to get on or off the boat when they beach it.
Even though its primary function will be patrolling Lake Sammamish this boat is trailerable, so they can take it anywhere they’re needed.
“The capability of this boat is really good It’s an all-weather capability night day we have night lights on this thing that are just unreal That the other boat did not have so we got LEDs,” Barton explained.
The FLIR camera shows people or things giving off heat such as a body in the water or even a vessel like a personal watercraft that had been running at night when it’s hard to see these things.
“We have night vision goggles which we can wear separate as well,” said Barton.
Just two weeks ago, Barton said the unit responded to a call of two missing people on the water, who had been on personal watercraft.
“So they came out using the FLIR and scanned the lake and found nothing and the person was actually found somewhere else,” Barton explained.
Still, the deputies put their new equipment to use and it worked.
So, how fast can this boat go? Broderson got it up to 48 mph, with four people on board, while demonstrating its capabilities.
“So if we’re doing things with our SWAT team where we need to board another boat that’s underway, we have to then catch up to that boat to then deliver the SWAT guys on the boat, the target boat, so having the extra speed does matter,” said Broderson.
The majority of their summer patrols involve educating standup paddleboarders about the regulations they’re not following. The biggest one is not having a life jacket. Broderson said they’ve encountered just about everything that could go wrong on the water.
“We’ve had people on the middle of the lake that they’re too tired to continue and they’ll wave us down and we’ll lend a hand with whatever it is,” Broderson explained.
Most waterways have tow boats that will rescue stranded, disabled boaters, but Lake Sammamish does not so they’ve also towed people to safety.
“You know, we’ve seen deck furniture come off of docks in high winds and it’s floating on the middle of the lake. You know, so we retrieve things like that,” said Broderson.
And those winds can also hit during summer months when the people are trying to enjoy the lake.
“Rich [Sgt. Barton] and I were out a couple years ago on Lake Washington and it was Stormy Day, small craft advisories and a guy had capsized his sailboat, a smaller, probably a 12 foot sailboat, capsized the sailboat and was clinging to it for dear life,” said Broderson.
Broderson said they happened to see the man and the capsized boat and quickly went to bring him aboard.
“Eventually got him to the shore, fire came, checked him out, took care of him but we still had to deal with the boat that’s in the middle like Washington. So the ability to go out and retrieve the boat so it’s not a hazard to others or it would create more calls and we would continue to get calls about this flipped over sailboat,” explained Broderson.
The KCSO Marine Patrol unit will likely be called upon during the FIFA World Cup matches coming to Seattle in 2026. They’re working now to train and familiarize themselves with this new boat to be ready whenever they’re needed.
This post was originally published on here
