Special Local Regulation; Sail Grand Prix, Upper Bay, New York City, NY

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 100</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2025-0039]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA08</RIN> <SUBJECT>Special Local Regulation; Sail Grand Prix, Upper Bay, New York City, NY</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security (DHS). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Temporary final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard is establishing a special local regulation in the Upper Bay of New York Harbor in support of a racing event, Sail Grand Prix 2025. This special local regulation is necessary to provide for the safety of life from the dangers associated with high-speed sailing during the event. This rule will temporarily prohibit persons and vessels from entering, transiting through, blocking, or loitering within the event area, unless authorized by the Captain of the Port, Sector New York or a designated representative. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective from 12:45 p.m. on June 5, 2025, through 5:30 p.m. on June 8, 2025. It will only be subject to enforcement, however, during the hours of 12:45 p.m. to 4 p.m. on June 5, 2025, and June 6, 2025, and from 2 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. on June 7, 2025, and June 8, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> To view documents mentioned in this preamble as being available in the docket, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> type USCG-2025-0039 in the search box and click “Search.” Next, in the Document Type column, select “Supporting & Related Material.” <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> If you have questions about this rule, call or email MST1 Kathryn Veal, Waterways Management Division, U.S. Coast Guard Sector New York; telephone 718-354-4151, email <E T="03">Kathryn.M.Veal@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">COTP Captain of the Port</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">Sail GP Sail Grand Prix</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">SLR Special Local Regulation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background Information and Regulatory History</HD> As an organized water event of limited duration which is conducted according to a prearranged schedule, Sail Grand Prix (Sail GP) is a “Regatta or marine parade,” as defined at 33 CFR 100.05. An individual or organization planning to hold a regatta or marine parade which, by its nature, circumstances or location, will introduce extra or unusual hazards to the safety of life on the navigable waters of the United States, must submit an application to hold it as outlined in 33 CFR 100.15. On December 5, 2024, a representative of Sail GP submitted an application under 33 CFR 100.15 to conduct Sail GP 2025 in the Upper Bay of New York Harbor for approximately four hours each day from June 5, 2025, through June 8, 2025. The event will take place between Governors Island, Ellis Island, and Liberty Island in the Upper Bay, and it will feature 50-foot foiling catamaran sailboats. After approving plans for the holding of a regatta or marine parade within his or her district or zone, a Captain of the Port (COTP) is authorized to promulgate such special local regulations as he or she deems necessary to ensure safety of life on the navigable waters immediately prior to, during, and immediately after the approved regatta or marine parade as outlined in 33 CFR 100.35. Due to the high-profile nature of this event, spectator vessels and support craft that will be present and will have the potential to cause vessel congestion in proximity of the Anchorage Channel and the Hudson River. The COTP, Sector New York has determined that potential hazards associated with the race and race location are a safety concern for anyone within the race area and adjacent navigable waters and is therefore establishing these special local regulations. The Coast Guard is issuing this temporary rule under the authority in 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(B). This statutory provision authorizes an agency to issue a rule without prior notice and opportunity to comment when the agency for good cause finds that those procedures are “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.” The Coast Guard finds that good cause exists for not publishing a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) with respect to this rule because it is impractical to do so due to insufficient time to publish a final rule by June 5, 2025. Under 5 U.S.C. 553(d)(3), the Coast Guard finds that good cause exists for making this rule effective less than 30 days after publication in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . Delaying the effective date of this rule would be impracticable and contrary to public interest because the rule must be in effect by June 5, 2025, to serve its intended purpose. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Legal Authority and Need for Rule</HD> The Coast Guard is issuing this rule under authority in 46 U.S.C. 70041. The COTP has determined that this rule is needed to protect personnel, vessels, and the marine environment from the hazards associated with the race event. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of the Rule</HD> The Coast Guard is establishing a special local regulation in the Upper Bay of New York Harbor for approximately four hours each day from June 5, 2025, through June 8, 2025. In the event that weather conditions prevent or delay a safe race start, the public will be notified of changes to the enforcement period through marine broadcasts, local notice to mariners, local news media, distribution in leaflet form, or by on-scene designated representatives. The areas regulated by this special local regulation lie between Governors Island, Ellis Island, and Liberty Island and cover all navigable waters, from surface to bottom, as more specifically defined below. The Sail GP sponsor will mark the regulated area via colored visual markers and will designate a spectator area within the regulated area. The spectator area will be located on the northern end of the regulated area and will change depending upon the racecourse. The duration of the enforcement times is intended to ensure the safety of vessels, participants, and spectators, and those transiting the area during the scheduled practice and race periods. This special local regulation will temporarily restrict vessel traffic in the vicinity of Liberty Island and Ellis Island and prohibit vessels and persons not participating in the race event from entering the dedicated race area. The Coast Guard will provide notice of the special local regulation through marine broadcasts, local notice to mariners, local news media, distribution in leaflet form, or by on-scene designated representatives. <HD SOURCE="HD1">V. Regulatory Analyses</HD> We developed this 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. <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 rule has not been designated a “significant regulatory action,” under section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866. Accordingly, this rule has not been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This regulatory action determination is based on the special local regulation's size, location, and duration. Vessel traffic will be able to safely transit around the regulated area via the Buttermilk Channel and via a transit lane west of the race area. The event will impact a small, designated area of the New York Harbor for less than four hours each day. Considerations were made to adjust to an earlier time for Thursday, June 5, 2025, and Friday, June 6, 2025, so as to reduce the impact of the special local regulation on commuter ferries. Moreover, the Coast Guard will issue notice of the special local regulation through marine broadcasts, local notice to mariners, local news media, distribution in leaflet form, or by on-scene designated representatives, and the rule will allow vessels to seek permission to enter. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Impact on Small Entities</HD> The regulatory flexibility analysis provisions of the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, 5 U.S.C. 601-612, do not apply to rules not subject to notice and comment. As the Coast Guard has, for good cause, waived the notice and comment requirement that would otherwise apply to this rulemaking, the Regulatory Flexibility Act's flexibility analysis provisions do not apply here. Under section 213(a) of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 (Pub. L. 104-121), we want to assist small entities in understanding this rule. If the rule will affect your small business, organization, or governmental jurisdiction and you have questions concerning its provisions or options for compliance, please call or email the person listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. Small businesses may send comments on the actions of Federal employees who enforce, or otherwise determine compliance with, Federal regulations to the Small Business and Agriculture Regulatory Enforcement Ombudsman and the Regional Small Business Regulatory Fairness Boards. The Ombudsman evaluates these actions annually and rates each agency's responsiveness to small business. If you wish to comment on a ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 17k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━