WEST HAVEN — The West Shore Fire Department will be able to respond to emergencies off the city’s shores this summer, faster than you can say "jetboat."

The department’s new 18-foot Sea-Doo Sportster 1800, on loan for the season, free of charge from Gargano’s Sales and Service in East Haven, tops out around 55 mph.

Department Chief William F. Kelly said the craft is geared perfectly for its assignment, and for the shallow waters off the city’s coast.

And on its own, Kelly said, the boat is safer and more useful than the two craft previously used by the department, a 14-foot inflatable powered by an outboard engine, and a small personal water craft loaned to the department last summer, also by Gargano’s.

The boat has an extremely shallow "draft," meaning a short distance from the craft’s waterline to the base of its hull underwater, which is necessary in waters where storms shift sand bars and shoals each winter, Kelly said.

The craft is powered and steered by a jet nozzle of pressurized seawater drawn from beneath the boat.

"This boat will certainly get us there a lot faster with the high draft and maneuverability," Kelly said.

The boat seats seven, and has room enough on its deck for a backboard, and provides room for crew to perform CPR, Kelly said.

The absence of a propeller lessens the risk of injuring a victim in the water, said Robert Gargano Jr., the owner of Gargano’s.

"You take a chance, if there’s a propeller spinning, of hurting someone. With this, you don’t," Gargano said.

The craft’s low clearance above the waterline will make it easier to retrieve victims, and in some cases their rescuers, from the water, Kelly said.

In 1999 a West Shore firefighter who donned a cold water rescue suit to rescue passengers from a capsized boat was almost unable to scale the inflatable craft’s high hull, Kelly said.

After firefighters train on the boat in the coming days for search and rescue calls, the boat will sit at the ready on a trailer at the department’s Ocean Avenue firehouse.

And on weekend and peak beach days during the summer, the boat will patrol off the city’s shores in four-hour shifts along with the police department’s jet ski patrol.

The boat, powered by a six-cylinder, 210 horsepower Mercury engine, would cost $18,000 at retail. The loaned craft are returned to Gargano’s each fall, and sold as demonstration vehicles, Gargano said.

©New Haven Register 2000