This is just bizarre. Over the past six months, somebody’s been stealing the brass bells from offshore buoys off the coast of Maine. The Coast Guard is not happy about this, and neither would you be if you were relying on the sound signals from the buoys to help you navigate in the fog or at night.
“These thefts not only reduce the reliability of our aids to navigation system and put lives at risk, said Lt. Matthew Odom of the Coast Guard waterways management division, “but they also create a burden and expense to the taxpayer for the buoy tenders and crews responsible for maintaining the aids.”
The Coast Guard now is asking for help in locating the missing bells, or brass sound signaling devices, which may have been sold to scrap metal yards or to nautical novelty shops. Stealing a bell, or tampering with an aid to navigation, is a federal offense, resulting in fines of up to $25,000 a day or one year in prison. The Coast Guard says that anyone with information leading to a conviction in the bell theft is eligible for up to half the amount of the fine imposed.
If you have any information about the missing bells, please call the Coast Guard’s Northern New England command center at 207 767-0303. For more:
