Lewes Coast Guard gets first commander

Lt. Danielle Taylor is making history in a tiny building at the Roosevelt Inlet in Lewes.

Taylor is the first commander of the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Unit Lewes and the only Coast Guard officer in the State of Delaware.

She has a team of seven warrant officers and marine science technicians under her command.

The Marine Safety Unit has been there since 1994, but was formerly known as a detachment. It was elevated to a higher status at an assumption-of-command ceremony at the Cape May-Lewes Ferry terminal May 29. That is when Taylor took command, the first non-enlisted Coast Guard member to be in charge.

MSU Lewes’ slogan is “Keepers of the Delaware Bay.”

“Our primary mission is inspection. We conduct safety and security inspections of commercial traffic and small commercial passenger vessels,” Taylor said. 

She said they mostly inspect foreign-flagged crude oil tankers in the Big Stone Anchorage – a designated ship parking lot – five miles off the Delaware coast. They confirm the vessels are safe before they head up Delaware Bay to ports in Philadelphia or Wilmington.

Taylor’s team works under the radar. They do not even have their own boats with the familiar Coast Guard orange flash on the side. They are taken out to the ships by the Delaware Bay Launch Service out of Slaughter Beach.

“We climb the ladder on the side of the vessel, like a pilot would. We meet with the captain, go over documentation and start our inspection,” Taylor said. “We have a backpack full of notebooks with regulations they are required to follow, a flashlight, earplugs, hard hat and gloves.” 

Taylor and her inspectors are unarmed.

They spend two to four hours inspecting the bridge, crawling around engine rooms and cargo compartments, and testing navigation equipment.

“We rarely run into issues here. The ships are in really good compliance,” Taylor said.

She said violations are usually minor, like paint missing in a specific area. In those cases, the vessel is given a two-week notice to get the issue fixed.

Taylor and her team have the authority to stop a vessel’s movement if there is an unsafe condition.

MSU Lewes does not look for contraband. That is the job of a separate enforcement team based in Cape May, N.J.

Taylor’s unit also inspects smaller commercial vessels like the ferry and the Del River oil spill response vessel docked at the University of Delaware’s pier on Pilottown Road.

The unit does not inspect pleasure craft or provide search and rescue. That is the mission of the boats stationed at Indian River Inlet, which is under the command of enlisted leadership.

MSU Lewes is also responsible for investigating marine casualties and hazmat spills from the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal to Fenwick Island.

“A marine casualty could be as minor as a passenger slipping on the ferry. We have to investigate because it is a Coast Guard-regulated vessel,” Taylor said.

CWO Sean Decataldo, MSU Lewes’ lead investigator, said it is a vital role.

“What the NTSB does for air disasters, we do for shipping and marine accidents. It’s not so much punitive as it is trying to determine root causes, and maybe a law or policy needs to get changed,” Decataldo said.

MSU Lewes hosted a Coast Guard safety and security team during the week of Aug. 25, while President Joe Biden was at his home in Rehoboth Beach.

Crew members brought three small boats to Lewes on trailers from New York. They used the Coast Guard dock in Lewes while they were deployed.

“There are 10 other units like ours across the country. We get called in to support certain missions, usually from the local Coast Guard. We augment and provide that security posture,” said ENS Phillip Atkinson, one of the crew members.

Atkinson said he could not address what happens on the large, white Coast Guard cutter that is positioned off Gordons Pond beach during a presidential visit. But he said the crew is always in a ready posture.

A life in the Coast Guard

Taylor grew up in Toms River, N.J., near the Jersey Shore. She said she would watch the Coast Guard boats heading out of Manasquan Inlet during storms.

“I wanted to go into the Coast Guard since I was in high school,” she said.

Taylor graduated from the Merchant Marine Academy on Long Island in 2017 and signed up.

“I’m also a licensed mariner, so they put me in this job field because I had specific knowledge for inspecting ships,” she said.

She started her Coast Guard career in Miami, Fla., and moved to North Carolina before becoming commander in Lewes.

Her office is located in the small building at Roosevelt Inlet, across the parking lot from the Marine Education, Research and Rehabilitation Institute.

The structure was built in 1907 for a sail repair business, according to Taylor. It has been renovated many times over the decades. It now houses offices and a small crew bunk area.

As a commander, Taylor said she oversees facilities, personnel, administration and security, and reports to the sector commander in Philadelphia.

Because her unit is small, she still is able to get her hands dirty.

“Typically a commander is doing desk work, but I have a unique job and am required to go out on inspections,” she said.

Taylor’s husband is also in the Coast Guard. He serves in a similar marine safety job based a Coast Guard headquarters.

She is already looking forward to her next assignment, even though she said she will miss Lewes.

“I’m leaving next summer, leaving the uniform for a year, to represent the Coast Guard in the maritime industry. I will provide what the Coast Guard wants and hear from the industry what they need from the Coast Guard. I’ll bring that back and make changes to policies and procedures,” Taylor said.

Taylor said she does not know where she will be based, but she said she cannot wait to find out.