The Door County Sheriff’s Department has a new patrol boat on the water.
Door County has 298 miles of shoreline. The geographic make up of the county is almost 80% water. Lt. Jeff Farley says with more water surrounding us than any other county in the nation, a definite need for marine patrol is created.
The 29-foot Donzi -- The same model used by Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Warden Mike Neal -- was provided to the Sheriff’s department through a $180,000 grant from the U.S Department of Homeland Security. The boat is powered by twin 250 horsepower engines. It tops out around 60 mph.
The DNR provided additional funding to help pay for officer training. Seven Sheriff’s department officers have gone through the instruction on how to operate the vessel.
The grant and DNR funding also covers patrols of the waterfront during the busy tourism filled summer months. Farley says those patrols have helped control illicit activities before they arise.
Lt. Farley says the Florida-built boat is a big help in the Sheriff’s Department’s handling of criminal investigations on the water such as crashes or cases involving alcohol. He adds that when it’s not on patrol, the vessel is actually not kept in the water...
The boat is jam-packed with sophisticated GPS, radar, thermal cameras, and other nautical monitoring tools. A video tour of some of that equipment on board is below.
