The rescues are predictable, steady, red-hot, and keep all of us warm and engaged. Is it something new? I don't think so, not at all.
I bet the 'great ones' of every era, held court around the red hot tyrant to dissect the current disaster and (hopefully) rescue at sea.

We've been rescuing mariners for centuries. Today, our CG is the finely tuned-evolved life saving machinery along our coast. Disasters and rescues at sea on the coast of the US are an uncountable, unimaginable, number. You can trace century old rescue history to any harbor you visit today.

I don't know if the rate of these rescues is going up or down(or even if winter is higher than summer rescue #'s), but I can't see a time or reason that mariners will stop going to sea in the winter. Most mariners for the last few centuries were and are doing it for commercial reasons;shipping commerce, fishing, transportation, etc. Small boats have always been a part of the mix.

The ocean isn't a national park or forest you can close or open the gates to. You can regulate registration, continue to educate boaters(which the CG does) but the sea is too vast to regulate.

I don't want to regulate the seas, and I don't think, according to their centuries old mission, our proud CG wants to either.

"For over two centuries the U.S. Coast Guard has safeguarded our Nation’s maritime interests in the heartland, in the ports, at sea, and around the globe. We protect the maritime economy and the environment, we defend our maritime borders, and we save those in peril. This history has forged our character and purpose as America’s Maritime Guardian — Always Ready for all hazards and all threats."