LAGUNA BEACH : Budget Cuts Strand Lifeguard Boat

The only lifeguard boat in Laguna Beach has been put into storage, where it will spend most of the summer, a casualty of city budget cuts, city officials said.

“It’s been mothballed again, temporarily,” said Mike Dwinell, head lifeguard for the city. “It has served us well, and we hope to get it back.”

The city purchased the 17-foot, fiberglass Boston Whaler in early 1970 to help lifeguards make offshore rescues, advise water lovers of safety rules, help overturned sailboats and shoo away boats that come too close to swimmers.

Dwinell said the boat was retired in the late 1970s after Proposition 13 sliced into the city budget and was finally called back into action last year. However, last month, shortly after the new budget was approved, it was pulled out of the water again.

“It’s now on a trailer at the city yard waiting to be reinstated,” Dwinell said.

During last month’s budget discussions, City Council members indicated that they would like to float the boat again if money became available, but City Manager Kenneth C. Frank said Monday that is not likely to happen.

“I’d prefer to have the lifeguard boat, based on some of the jet skiers and careless boaters I’ve seen close to shore,” Frank said. However, he added, “there will not be funding for it this year.”

Known simply as 5571, the designation number by which marine safety workers identify it, the boat will still be used on long weekends. During the Fourth of July holiday weekend, lifeguards working from the boat made about 50 contacts with swimmers or boaters, Dwinell said.

Otherwise, in case of an emergency, local lifeguards must call or radio to Dana Point or Newport Beach for aid, a distance of about six miles to either city, Dwinell said. Such calls are required about three to four times per season, he said.

While the flat-bottom boat “can prove its worth on one rescue,” Dwinell said, it is expensive to operate since it must be staffed by two lifeguards. The boat also requires about $1,000 in maintenance and about $2,000 in fuel during the summer, he said.

“It was our philosophy that beach lifeguards were more important to have than the lifeguard boat,” he said.