Special Local Regulation; San Francisco Bay, San Francisco, CA

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 100</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2024-0378]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA08</RIN> <SUBJECT>Special Local Regulation; San Francisco Bay, San Francisco, CA</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard is proposing to establish a temporary special local regulation in the navigable waters of San Francisco Bay for the San Francisco Sail Grand Prix, Season 4 race periods on July 11, 2024, through July 14, 2024. This special local regulation is necessary to ensure the safety of mariners transiting the area from the dangers associated with high-speed sailing activities. This proposed rulemaking would temporarily prohibit entering, transiting through, anchoring, blocking, or loitering within the event area near the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island, unless authorized. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and related material must be received by the Coast Guard on or before June 12, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2024-0378 using the Federal Decision-Making Portal at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> See the “Public Participation and Request for Comments” portion of the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section for further instructions on submitting comments. This notice of proposed rulemaking with its plain-language, 100-word-or-less proposed rule summary will be available in this same docket. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> If you have questions about this proposed rulemaking, call or email Lieutenant William K. Harris, U.S. Coast Guard Sector San Francisco, Waterways Management Division; telephone 415-399-7443, email <E T="03">SFWaterways@uscg.mil.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Table of Abbreviations</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CFR Code of Federal Regulations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">DHS Department of Homeland Security</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FR Federal Register</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NPRM Notice of proposed rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">COTP Captain of the Port</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">PATCOM Patrol Commander</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background, Purpose, and Legal Basis</HD> On February 6, 2024, the Silverback Pacific Company notified the Coast Guard of the intention to conduct the “Sail Grand Prix, Season 4” in the San Francisco Bay. Sail Grand Prix (SailGP) is a sailing league featuring world-class sailors racing 50-foot foiling catamarans. The 2023-2024 season started June 16, 2023, and the season will conclude with the San Francisco Bay race in July 2024. In San Francisco, they propose to take advantage of the natural amphitheater that the central bay and city waterfront provide. SailGP has applied for a Marine Event Permit to hold the race event on the waters of the San Francisco Bay. At this time, the Coast Guard has not approved the Marine Event Permit and is still evaluating the application. If the permit is approved, however, we anticipate that a special local regulation may be necessary to ensure public safety during the race. To provide adequate time for public input, we are proposing this special local regulation prior to a decision on the Marine Event Permit. The SailGP event has previously been conducted in San Francisco Bay and each time the Coast Guard solicited input from maritime stakeholders to better understand the nature of commercial and recreational activities on the San Francisco Bay. As done in previous years panning, the Coast Guard will participate in local Harbor Safety Committee (HSC) meetings to meet with stakeholders, obtain information, and gather feedback on approaches to enact the regulations in connection with the SailGP. These regulations are needed to keep persons and vessels away from the sailing race vessels, which exhibit unpredictable maneuverability and have a demonstrated likelihood during the simulation of racing scenarios for capsizing. The proposed special local regulation would help prevent injuries and property damage that may be caused upon impact by these fast-moving vessels. The provisions of this temporary special local regulation would not exempt racing vessels from any federal, state, or local laws or regulations, including Nautical Rules of the Road. The Coast Guard proposes this rulemaking under authority in 46 U.S.C. 70041. Under 33 CFR 100.35, the Coast Guard District Commander has authority to promulgate certain special local regulations deemed necessary to ensure the safety of life on the navigable waters immediately before, during, and immediately after an approved regatta. Pursuant to 33 CFR 1.05-1(i), the Commander of Coast Guard District 11 has delegated to the COTP San Francisco the responsibility of issuing such regulations. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Proposed Rule</HD> The COTP San Francisco proposes to establish a special local regulation associated with the SailGP race event from noon to 5:30 p.m. each day from July 11, 2024, through July 14, 2024. The areas regulated by this special local regulation would be east of the Golden Gate Bridge, south of Alcatraz Island, west of Treasure Island, and in the vicinity of the city of San Francisco waterfront. The Coast Guard proposes establishing an Official Practice Box Area, an Official Race Box Area, and a Spectator Area. An image of these proposed regulated areas may be found in the docket. The special local regulation will cover all navigable waters of the San Francisco Bay, from surface to bottom, within the area formed by connecting the following latitude and longitude points in the following order: 37°48′24.3″ N, 122°27′53.5″ W; thence to 37°49′15.6″ N, 122°27′58.1″ W; thence to 37°49′28.9″ N, 122°25′52.1″ W; thence to 37°49′7.5″ N, 122°25′13″ W; thence to 37°48′42″ N, 122°25′13″ W; thence to 37°48′30.5″ N, 122°26′22.6″ W; thence along the shore to 37°48′26.9″ N, 122°26′50.5″ W and thence to the point of beginning. Located within this footprint, there will be three separate regulated areas: Zone “A”, the Official Practice Box Area; Zone “B”, the Official Race Box Area; and Zone “C”, the Spectator Area. Zone “A”, the Official Practice Box Area, will be marked by colored visual markers, The position of these markers will be specified via Local Notice to Mariners at least two weeks prior to the event and via Broadcast Notice to Mariners at least seven days prior to the event. Zone “A” would be used by the race and support vessels during the official practice period on July 11, 2024, and July 12, 2024. Zone “A”, the Official Practice Box Area, will be enforced during the official practices from noon to 5:30 p.m. on July 11, 2024, and from noon to 5:30 p.m. on July 12, 2024, or as announced via Broadcast Notice to Mariners. Excluding the public from entering Zone “A” is necessary to provide protection from the operation of the high-speed sailing vessels within this area. Zone “B”, the Official Race Box Area, will be marked by 12 or more colored visual markers. The position of these markers will be confirmed via Broadcast Notice to Mariners at least three days prior to the event. Only designated Sail Grand Prix race, support, and VIP vessels will be permitted to enter Zone “B”. Zone “B”, the Official Race Box Area, will be enforced during the official race periods from noon to 5:30 p.m. on July 13, 2024, and from noon to 5:30 p.m. on July 14, 2024. Because of the hazards posed by the sailing competition, excluding non-race vessel traffic from Zone “B” is necessary to provide protection from the operation of the high-speed sailing vessels within the area. Zone “C”, the Spectator Area, will be within the special local regulation area designated above and outside of Zone “B”, the Official Race Box Area. Zone “C” will be defined by latitude and longitude points per Broadcast Notice to Mariners. Zone “C” will be managed by marine event sponsor officials. Vessels will be prohibited from anchoring within the confines of Zone “C.” The duration of the establishment of the proposed special local regulation is intended to ensure the safety of vessels in these navigable waters during the scheduled practice and race periods. This proposed temporary special local regulation will temporarily restrict vessel traffic adjacent to the city of San Francisco waterfront in the vicinity of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island and prohibit vessels and persons not participating in the race event from entering the dedicated race area. The regulatory text we are proposing appears at the end of this document. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Regulatory Analyses</HD> We developed this proposed rule after considering numerous statutes and Executive orders related to rulemaking. Below we summarize our analyses based on a number of these statutes and Executive orders, and we discuss First Amendment rights of protestors. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Regulatory Planning and Review</HD> Executive Orders 12866 and 13563 direct agencies to assess the costs and benefits of available regulatory alternatives and, if regulation is necessary, to select regulatory approaches that maximize net benefits. This NPRM has not been designated a “significant regulatory action,” under section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866, as amended by Executive Order 14094 (Modernizing Regulatory Review). Accordingly, the NPRM has not been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This regulatory action determination is based on the size, location, and duration of the special local regulation. With this special local regulation, the Coast Guard intend ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 24k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━