Evan, I called Rob Copeland back in January, to offer input. We discussed the insurance, safety, etc. and asked him to refer me to any place that would be able to offer our support boaters the insurance required by USMS. He listened to my concerns, and I felt he had a good understanding of the challenges that some race directors will now face. I let him know that the Tampa Bay Marathon Swim will do whatever it takes to stay USMS sanctioned, but there is just no way to get insurance certs on 20+ power boaters. So, at least I feel like I had some input, but it was after their 12/31/12 letter that initially broke the news re: sanctioning OW events.
Ron, as far as I know (I've now tried 3 different brokers) the $1,000,000 insurance that USMS requests from hired boaters is only available to commercial operators.... so one of my issues is that USMS doesn't seem to have researched the availability before imposing this limit. At least now we know that the BOD is reading this thread.... so I will again invite anyone to provide a link to a company willing to provide such a policy.
Evan, I called Rob Copeland back in January, to offer input. We discussed the insurance, safety, etc. and asked him to refer me to any place that would be able to offer our support boaters the insurance required by USMS. He listened to my concerns, and I felt he had a good understanding of the challenges that some race directors will now face. I let him know that the Tampa Bay Marathon Swim will do whatever it takes to stay USMS sanctioned, but there is just no way to get insurance certs on 20+ power boaters. So, at least I feel like I had some input, but it was after their 12/31/12 letter that initially broke the news re: sanctioning OW events.
Ron, as far as I know (I've now tried 3 different brokers) the $1,000,000 insurance that USMS requests from hired boaters is only available to commercial operators.... so one of my issues is that USMS doesn't seem to have researched the availability before imposing this limit. At least now we know that the BOD is reading this thread.... so I will again invite anyone to provide a link to a company willing to provide such a policy.
