Boarding Officer

A boarding officer is the commissioned officer or senior rating who leads a visit, board, search, and seizure (VBSS) team and holds legal command of a boarding once aboard the target vessel. The role covers approach and compliance, mustering the crew, conducting the search, documenting findings, and deciding escalation along the use-of-force continuum within the unit’s rules of engagement. In US Coast Guard practice the boarding officer carries delegated law-enforcement authority under 14 U.S.C. 522 (formerly section 89), the right of visit, inspection, search, seizure, and arrest on waters subject to US jurisdiction.