Uspsqd?

[+Astro_D]

This past weekend we went BM hunting and found one that the Power Squadron listed in 2003 as 'not found - description no longer adequate'. We spent 10 minutes using the description/coordinates and found it plain as day. (This BM was last recovered 1976).

 

I see many recovered/not recovered logs by this group. This leads me to ask who or what is the Power Squadron?

[mloser]

From the US Power Squadron website:

Organized in 1914, USPS is a non profit, educational organization dedicated to making boating safer and more enjoyable by teaching classes in seamanship, navigation and related subjects. Our members are boating families who contribute to their communities by promoting safe boating through education. We enjoy participating with our fellow members on the water and in the classroom. USPS has some 60,000 members organized into 450 squadrons across the country and in some US territories. USPS is America's largest non-profit boating organization and has been honored by three US presidents for its civic contributions

 

Power Squadron website

 

Power Squadron guide to benchmark recovery. This guide is actually a very good starting point for benchmark hunters.

 

Like all endeavors, there are good USPS hunters and bad ones. In general though, their recoveries are below what this group feels is necessary, so they have been discussed here quite a bit (search for "power squadron" or "uspsqd" and see some of the older posts). I suspect that some of them hunt benchmarks just to get credit for doing so and am guessing that a Not Found counts as much as a Found in their record keeping. On the flip side, there are indeed good USPSQD hunters. There is one at the fringe of my area who has done a very good job--it took me about 50 of his marks to locate one that he had marked as Not Found.

 

Why has nobody from the Power Squadron ever posted on this board in defense of their actions?

[+seventhings]

Regarding the USPSQD, as mloser said, there are good one and there are less-than-good ones. The Squadron's members has recovered a great many marks along waterways that I can't even get to (not having a boat, and all.) But they seldon dig for a mark and they seldon update descriptions or to-reach directions in their NGS recovery reports. I have found a great many marks, most just below the surface, that Squadron hunters have reported as not found.

 

While they don't dig to find marks, they don't seem to mis-identify intersection stations as often as some benchmark hunters do.

 

When the Squadron is the only agency to report a mark as not found, I will not revise downward my estimate of the mark's "findability".

 

W

Edited February 15, 2006 by seventhings

[Z15]

A lot of their members are retired persons. A local DDS was clueing me in to some in my area. He is boater and member of the USCG Aux. so he comes in contact with a lot of boaters.

 

This guy bought his yahct in Flordia and crusied it home up into Lake Superior but doing it on weekends.