KING COUNTY, Wash. — There’s a new boat patrolling Lake Sammamish. The King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) Marine Patrol unit is now training on a new 2023 Safe Boat manufactured in Bremerton.

They added a large monitor equipped with infrared or Flir camera, radar and navigation charts, giving them advanced capabilities for patrol, search, rescue and recovery.

Sergeant. Richard Barton and Deputy Kyle Broderson took KOMO News to the new ship to show us the new and advanced capabilities it offers.

The Washington State Parks Boating Program created six grants of $150,000 each. KSCO requested and received one for this boat as it is the only marine unit patrolling Lake Sammamish.

“We are the only entity outside, meaning here for five different entities in Lake Sammamish, Redmond, Bellevue, Issaquah and unincorporated King County, none of them have a marine unit,” Barton explained.

They are in charge of everything that happens at the lake; patrols, boat collisions, deaths, rescues, recoveries and even firefighting.

The sheriff’s office secured the $150,000 grant for the boat, which comes with the stipulation that KCSO contribute 25% of that amount. They did so and the final cost of this new Safe Boat, with all the electronics and fire protection system on board, amounted to $187,000.0

This ship also has a design that is better suited to the work the marine unit does with it.

“When we upgrade our equipment, it’s because of that responsiveness of coming in quickly and reliably,” Barton said.

They are low gunwales and two low access points towards the stern of the boat that are only 8” from the water. That’s a good low height for officers to reach in and pull someone out of the water. They also have small ladders that can go there for divers to get in or out of the water.

The bow of the boat also opens with steps that fold down into the water, again for a diver to enter or exit the water or for someone to get on or off the boat when beaching it.

Although your primary function will be to patrol Lake Sammamish, this boat is towable, so you can take it anywhere you need.

“The capability of this boat is really good. It’s able to withstand all types of weather. At night, during the day, we have night lights on this thing that are just unreal. The other boat didn’t have them, so we got LEDs,” Barton explained.

The FLIR camera shows people or things that emit heat, such as a body in the water or even a vessel, such as a personal watercraft, that has been operating at night when it is difficult to see these things.

“We have night vision goggles that we can also use separately,” Barton said.

Just two weeks ago, Barton said the unit responded to a call of two people missing in the water, who had been on jet skis.

“So they went out using the FLIR and scanned the lake and found nothing and the person was found somewhere else,” Barton explained.

Still, the agents put their new equipment to use and it worked.

So how fast can this boat go? Broderson took it up to 48 mph, with four people on board, while demonstrating its capabilities.

“So if we’re doing things with our SWAT team where we need to board another ship that’s underway, we have to reach that ship to then get the SWAT guys to the ship, the target ship, to have the extra speed. That does matter,” Broderson said.

Most of their summer patrols involve educating paddlers about regulations they don’t follow. The biggest one is not having a life jacket. Broderson said they’ve encountered just about everything that could go wrong on the water.

“We’ve had people in the middle of the lake who are too tired to continue and they wave us down and we’ll give them a hand with whatever,” Broderson explained.

Most waterways have tow boats that rescue stranded and disabled boaters, but Lake Sammamish does not, so they have also towed people to safety.

“You know, we’ve seen patio furniture come loose from docks in high winds and float in the middle of the lake. You know, we get things back like that,” Broderson said.

And those winds can also blow during the summer months, when people are trying to enjoy the lake.

“Rich (Sgt. Barton) and I were a couple of years ago on Lake Washington and it was a stormy day, there were small boat warnings and a guy had his sailboat capsized, a smaller one, probably 12 feet, capsized the sailboat and clung to it. “We’ll save his life,” Broderson said.

Broderson said they saw the man and the overturned boat and quickly went to get him aboard.

“We finally got it to shore, the fire came, they checked it out, they took care of it, but we still had to deal with the boat that’s in the middle like Washington. So the ability to go out and recover the boat so it’s not a danger to others or it would create more calls and we would continue to get calls about this capsized sailboat,” Broderson explained.

The KCSO Marine Patrol unit will likely be called upon during the FIFA World Cup matches being held in Seattle in 2026. They are now working to train and familiarize themselves with this new vessel to be ready when needed.