The US Coast Guard’s minimum equipment list is the floor, not the ceiling. A 35-foot sailboat that meets every USCG carriage requirement can still be missing the gear that, on the day it matters, will be the difference between a SAR case and a body recovery. The carriage list is what you must have to be legal. The working list is what you must have to come home.
This article covers both. The first half is the USCG minimum, with the regulation cited so you can verify it; the second half is the working list — gear that is not legally required but that experienced PNW cruisers actually carry, with reasons.
What the USCG requires
The current carriage requirements for recreational vessels are codified in 33 CFR Subchapter S and summarised in the USCG Boater’s Reference Guide. Below is the working version for the Pacific Coast cruising boat, 26 to 65 feet, operating outside the three-mile line.
Personal flotation devices (PFDs). One Coast Guard–approved PFD per person aboard, in working condition, readily accessible. A PFD locked in a lazarette is not accessible. Type I (offshore, ≥22 lb buoyancy) is the regulation minimum for offshore work; Type III (foam, ≥17 lb, comfortable for continuous wear) is acceptable for inland and coastal use. Boats 16 feet and longer must also carry one Type IV (throwable) device — a horseshoe buoy or cushion — within reach of the helm.
Visual distress signals. For boats over 16 feet operating in coastal or open waters: three day signals and three night signals, or three combination signals. The standard set is six SOLAS-grade red parachute flares; some operators substitute electronic visual distress signal devices (eVDSDs) with USCG approval. Flares expire — replace them on the printed date.
Sound-producing device. A whistle or horn audible at one half nautical mile. Air horns with replaceable canisters are standard; mouth whistles work but are easy to lose.
Fire extinguishers. One B-II extinguisher on boats 26–40 feet; two on boats 40–65 feet; three on boats over 65 feet. Mounted, accessible, current pressure indicated on the gauge.
Navigation lights. USCG-compliant running lights between sunset and sunrise and in restricted visibility. Configuration depends on vessel type and length; standard recreational sailboat under 20 metres carries red port, green starboard, white stern, and a tricolour or masthead light depending on whether under sail or power.
Ventilation (gasoline engines). Required on all boats with permanently installed gasoline engines or fuel tanks. The blower runs four minutes before engine start.
Backfire flame arrestor (gasoline engines). USCG-approved arrestor on every engine carburettor.
Marine sanitation device (MSD). Required on all boats with installed toilets. Type I or Type II treats waste; Type III is a holding tank for shore-side pumpout. Discharge of untreated sewage is prohibited inside the three-mile line.
Garbage placard. Plates posted on boats over 26 feet.
Oil spill placard. Posted near the engine on boats over 26 feet with engines.
Pollution placard for marine sanitation. Posted near the head on boats with installed MSDs.
That is the Coast Guard’s floor. It is enough to pass a vessel safety check. It is not enough to come home from a cold-water passage with a man overboard.
The working list — what actually saves lives
The PNW cruising boat that has saved its own lives, more than once, has carried the following gear in addition to the regulation list. This is from the working practice of cruisers who actually use the equipment, not from a manufacturer’s catalogue.
Lifejackets that are on, not stored
The Type III foam jacket is the workhorse for the PNW, and the only acceptable answer to the question what jackets are on the deck right now? The answer needs to be: every person on deck is wearing one between October and June, every solo helmsman is wearing one in any season, and every crew member on the foredeck is wearing one whenever the boat is moving. Lifejackets in the lazarette do not save lives. See Cold Water Survival in the Pacific Northwest for why.
For shoulder-season cruising the upgrade is a float coat — Mustang, Helly Hansen — a foul-weather jacket with sewn-in flotation. The jacket is what cruisers actually wear all day; the integrated flotation removes the I’ll put one on if I need it lie.
A tether and jackline system
A jackline is a 1-inch tubular webbing strap run bow to stern along the side decks; a tether (1- or 2-metre) clips between the lifejacket harness and the jackline. In any wind over fifteen knots, in fog, at night, or single-handed, the cruiser on deck is clipped on. A person who falls overboard while clipped on is dragged alongside, badly, but not lost. A person who falls overboard unclipped at 0300 in 50°F water is, in the PNW, very likely lost.
A LifeSling or equivalent
A LifeSling is a buoyant horseshoe collar trailed on a 150-foot line, designed to be circled around a person in the water and used as both flotation and hoist sling. It is the standard recovery tool on PNW cruising boats for good reason. Drill it. See Man Overboard for the recovery procedure that uses it.
An EPIRB and a PLB
An EPIRB (Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon) is a vessel-mounted distress beacon that activates manually or automatically when submerged. Modern units (Category I or II 406 MHz) transmit GPS-encoded distress signals via the Cospas-Sarsat satellite system to USCG SAR. Registration with NOAA is free and links the beacon to your vessel and emergency contacts. Battery life is roughly 48 hours of continuous transmission.
A PLB (Personal Locator Beacon) is the handheld version. It clips onto the lifejacket harness. The cruiser who is in the water without the boat needs a PLB on their person; the EPIRB on the boat is no use if the boat is gone or sinking faster than they are.
For PNW coastal cruising: an EPIRB on the boat plus a PLB on each lifejacket is the modern standard. Together they cost roughly US$700–$1,500 and they will, on the day it matters, summon the Coast Guard with sub-100-metre position accuracy from anywhere in the Pacific.
A handheld VHF as backup
The fixed VHF on a 35-foot cruising boat is excellent until the mast goes down, the battery dies, or the antenna is lost. A handheld VHF (Standard Horizon HX870, Icom IC-M37) carried in a grab bag is the redundancy that keeps you on Channel 16 when the main set is out. Modern handhelds include DSC and built-in GPS — the same distress capability as the fixed unit, in 250 grams.
A grab bag
A waterproof bag staged near the companionway, containing: the handheld VHF, a PLB, a paper chart of the cruising area, a hand-bearing compass, a flashlight with extra batteries, signaling mirror, energy bars, water bottles, a copy of essential documents (passport, USCG vessel registration), and one warm layer per crew. Weight: 4–6 kg. The bag is what leaves the boat with you if the boat is sinking.
A first-aid kit that is more than a band-aid box
The minimum coastal-cruising first-aid kit includes: assorted bandages and gauze, pressure dressings, antiseptic, antibiotic ointment, NSAIDs and acetaminophen, antihistamines, anti-diarrhoeal, seasickness medication, tweezers, scissors, splinter forceps, a small splint, a CPR pocket mask, and a printed first-aid guide. Adventure Medical Kits sells a Marine 1500 kit that covers this; an offshore-grade Marine 3000 covers extended cruising.
If anyone on board has a known medical condition (diabetes, heart, severe allergies), the relevant medications and instructions are in the bag.
Visual signaling beyond flares
SOLAS flares are good. They are also limited by line-of-sight, weather, and the fact that nobody is looking. The full visual signaling kit:
- SOLAS-grade flares, replaced on schedule
- Signal mirror (Coghlan or military-issue) — visible on a clear day at twenty miles
- Strobe light (ACR Firefly Pro, or similar) — clipped to the lifejacket, water-activated
- Sea dye marker (one-time use, fluorescein) for daylight aircraft search
- A whistle on the lifejacket, in addition to the boat’s horn
Cold-water gear
A drysuit (Mustang Survival, Kokatat) extends survival time in 50°F water from hours into half-days. It is the only piece of gear on this list that, by itself, can change the outcome of a serious cold-water immersion. Required for solo cold-water sailors, single-handed Race-to-Alaska crews, and any cruiser operating outside the regular SAR coverage zone in cold months. US$500–$1,500.
For shoulder-season cruising without a drysuit, the next-best layer is a foul-weather suit over wool or fleece, with a float coat over the top. Cotton is not present anywhere on the boat.
The maintenance schedule
Equipment that has not been inspected in two seasons is equipment that may not work. Working PNW cruisers run the following:
Monthly: Pressure check on every fire extinguisher. Visual inspection on PFD condition (UV damage, ripped straps, mildew). Test the navigation lights. Rotate batteries in handheld VHF and flashlights.
Annually: Replace expired flares. Service the inflatable PFDs (CO₂ cartridge, bladder integrity, manual inflator). Service the inflatable life raft (factory cycle — every 2–3 years). Update EPIRB and PLB registration with NOAA. Replace the main batteries in EPIRB / PLB (manufacturer schedule, typically 5 years).
Pre-season: A full gear-down. Every safety item out of its locker, inspected, tested, repacked. The list takes a Saturday morning. The Saturday morning has saved lives.
When the cruise goes offshore
The list above covers a coastal PNW cruising boat — Puget Sound, the San Juans, the Gulf Islands, the Strait of Juan de Fuca on calm days. The boat that crosses the Strait in winter, makes the run from Astoria to San Francisco, or pushes north of Desolation Sound into the BC outer coast adds equipment. The threshold is roughly more than a day’s sail from the nearest small-boat station, but the principle matters more than the geography: the further out, the longer rescue takes, and the more the boat has to take care of itself in the meantime.
Sea anchor and drogue. A sea anchor (parachute-style, deployed from the bow) holds the boat’s bow into the wind in heavy weather, prevents broaching, and keeps the boat stationary in conditions where heaving-to is no longer adequate. A drogue (deployed from the stern) slows the boat and prevents broaching when running before steep following seas. Both are offshore-passage equipment; neither is necessary for protected PNW work. The Pardey storm tactics literature is the reference; the modern off-the-shelf options are the Para-Tech Sea Anchor and the Jordan Series Drogue.
Storm jib and storm trysail. Heavy-weather sails sized to a fraction of the working canvas, set on dedicated tracks or pad-eyes. A boat planning a Pacific crossing or a winter Strait of Juan de Fuca passage has them aboard, hanked on, ready. A boat planning a summer San Juans week does not need them.
SSB / ham radio. Single-Sideband or amateur-radio HF transceivers were the standard offshore communication equipment for forty years and are still carried by a meaningful fraction of long-distance cruisers — particularly those who participate in nets like the Pacific Seafarer’s Net or the SSCA HF networks. Modern satellite messaging (Garmin inReach, Iridium GO!, Starlink Maritime) covers most of what SSB used to do, but cruisers who value the community of HF radio nets, who want long-range weatherfax reception, or who plan extended ocean passages still install SSB. Cost: US$2,000–$5,000 installed; FCC licence required; tuner and ground plane are non-trivial installation work.
Two-way satellite messenger. A Garmin inReach Mini 2 (US$400) or Iridium GO! exec is the modern offshore communication baseline. Two-way text messaging anywhere on Earth, position tracking, integrated SOS to GEOS rescue coordination. Highly recommended for anyone cruising north of Desolation Sound, south of San Francisco Bay, or offshore from any of the regular SAR coverage zones. A satellite messenger complements rather than replaces EPIRB and PLB — different systems, different failure modes, different battery lives.
Radar. A 4 kW or 6 kW radar with AIS overlay on the chartplotter is standard equipment on offshore-going PNW boats. The PNW gets fog (Puget Sound, the Strait, the outer coast in summer), and cold-water fog is dense, persistent, and forms in air the forecast called clear. Radar is not optional for night or fog work outside the main Puget Sound shipping channels.
AIS transponder. A Class B AIS transponder broadcasts the boat’s position, course, and identity to all nearby AIS-equipped vessels (every commercial ship, every modern cruiser). Receive-only AIS shows the cruiser the commercial traffic; transmit-and-receive AIS makes the cruiser visible to it. For Strait of Juan de Fuca and outer-coast work — where the commercial traffic is bulk carriers, tankers, and container ships that cannot manoeuvre quickly — Class B AIS is the modern replacement for the radar reflector.
Radar reflector. Required by international regulations on vessels under 20 metres in restricted visibility. In practice, modern AIS supersedes the reflector for most commercial-traffic encounters — bridge officers on a 250-metre bulk carrier see your AIS track, not your reflective area. Carry both for redundancy on offshore work.
The principle: the offshore equipment list grows in proportion to the time between you and rescue. A boat in Eagle Harbor at midnight is twenty minutes from a USCG response; a boat 50 miles offshore Tofino in February is several hours from one. The gear scales accordingly.
The simplest possible test
Walk through the boat with the question: if the boat sinks in the next three minutes, who survives?
If the answer is only the people who happen to be wearing their lifejacket and have a PLB on it, the boat is well-equipped. If the answer is the people who can reach the lazarette and dig out the jackets in time, the equipment is ornamental.
The lifejacket that is in the lazarette is not on. The drill that has not been done in fog has not been done.
Related: Man Overboard · Cold Water Survival · Marine VHF Radio · Anchoring in PNW Waters