Coast Guard: No permit for boat race

Citing a lack of emergency planning, the Coast Guard says it won’t issue a permit for the Battle of the Bay speedboat races planned for the Great South Bay next weekend.

The agency says organizers must file a more detailed safety plan before it will issue a marine permit, Cmdr. Amy Beach of the Coast Guard’s Long Island Sound sector said yesterday.

But an official with Great South Bay Racing Inc. said the group will be able to ensure safety at the event.

It was not immediately clear whether the Coast Guard would postpone or scrap the fifth annual summer event.

Beach said Coast Guard officials lost confidence in the ability of race organizers to manage the West Sayville event safely.

According to Beach, it wasn’t because organizers did not address specific safety concerns, but because there was a general failure to identify potential hazards and provide detailed response plans for them.

“When you go through the action plan, most of the critical things, like who the ambulance will be, is ‘to be determined,’ ” she said. “They don’t have those details down and can’t give them to us.”

If one of the speedboats crashed, for example, the plan does not say which first responders would dive into the water to search for victims, Beach said.

But Great South Bay Racing president Louis Giancontieri said the dispute comes down to a paperwork issue.

Although the safety plan was not “informative enough for the Coast Guard,” organizers have enough manpower and equipment to safely conduct the race, said Giancontieri, of Brentwood.

“We just have to go in and identify our assets,” he said. Planners will meet with the Coast Guard tomorrow to resolve outstanding issues, he said.

He said the race can’t be postponed because of scheduling conflicts. “It’s not like a picnic you can move until the next weekend,” Giancontieri said.

Beach said the Coast Guard will review the updated plan and said whether the race is rescheduled is “up to them.”

The races feature dozens of boats and have drawn thousands of spectators, but the event has turned tragic in the past.

In 2008, Kevin Graff, of Port Washington, and Phil DeJana, of Bayville, were killed when their boat, racing at nearly 100 mph, flipped in the bay off the Village of Patchogue.

Following the deaths, Patchogue Mayor Paul Pontieri called for larger buffer zones between race and spectator vessels.

The Coast Guard is on patrol during the races, but the agency doesn’t have divers and can’t protect racers and spectators, Beach said. “It’s incumbent upon those putting in a request to provide those kinds of resources,” she said.

The group’s previous safety plans were adequate, Beach said.

The event had been scheduled to start Friday and run through Sunday off West Sayville.