Coast Guard members from around the region gathered in the new Coast Guard Boathouse in Menemsha on Thursday morning to inaugurate the Island’s first volunteer flotilla in 35 years.
“This doesn’t happen often,” commander Carissa April, director of auxiliary, told the group of about 35 volunteers and active duty members, who were joined by a handful of others in the cavernous concrete boathouse. The last flotilla to stand up in the region was about 15 years ago on Nantucket.
An empty harbor was visible through the windows of an enormous bay door, just behind the podium where officials addressed the crowd. A few gulls hunkered down on the wooden piles along the docks.
“As an auxiliary you will be able to contribute boating safety with the reward of lives saved and injuries avoided,” Commodore Ronald Booth of the First District Northern Region told the 18-member flotilla, before administering an oath of service.
Flotilla 11-9 evolved out of Flotilla 11-2 in Woods Hole, where former vice commander David Pothier had recruited enough Islanders beginning in 2010 to form a Vineyard detachment. He went on to recruit nearly all of the volunteers in the new flotilla. “If it wasn’t for your efforts in recruiting we wouldn’t have a flotilla here today,” senior chief Robert Riemer of Station Menemsha said in awarding Mr. Pothier a red flag in recognition of his service as former detachment leader.
Members of the Coast Guard Auxiliary wear blue uniforms and silver shoulder marks and take part in a wide range of Coast Guard activities, including search and rescue, vessel exams and public education.
Flotilla 11-9 commander Timothy Carroll, who is also executive secretary for the town of Chilmark, said local volunteers perform about 50 vessel exams per year at no cost to mariners. “We’d love to do more,” he said.
Mr. Carroll received a device for his uniform, in recognition of his completion of the Operations Auxiliarist program, sometimes called the Ph.D. of the Auxiliary. Chris Scott, former commander of Flotilla 11-2, received awards for his five years of member service and for public education.
Among those present Thursday was Kenneth DeBettencourt, who led the previous Vineyard flotilla, 1105. Mr. DeBettencourt continues to volunteer for the local auxiliary.
Wayne Iacono, former executive chief of station Mememsha, joined the auxiliary about four years ago and recalled the emergence of the Vineyard detachment.
“Working with the group on the Cape, it was difficult to be back and forth,” he said, as people visited over pastries and lobster rolls after the ceremony. “It was so much easier to have it here, to do it ourselves.”
An even earlier Flotilla, 609, stood up on the Vineyard during World War II. Auxiliary affairs specialist Peter Boardman had recommended retaining the number 9 in the new title as a nod to Island history. The 11 indicates the group’s membership in the Cape and Islands division.
Capt. John Kondratowicz, commander of sector Southeastern New England, had traveled from Coast Guard headquarters in Woods Hole to attend the ceremony. Standing in the new boathouse, beneath a giant overhead crane, he recalled the previous wooden boathouse that was destroyed by fire in 2010.
“As a result of commissioning this building a few years back we are also able to bring in the new Flotilla 11-9,” he said. “This is a part of history. This is part of the Island. You folks are true Americans, and thank you for what you do.”
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