A bailing bucket for a pontoon boat? Was the man on crack? Damn pencil pushers, tell him to get his face out of a book and learn something about water crafts. Life jacket and signalling device, you should be fine. If you get stopped for anything i'd be surprised considering I just floated the bow yesterday in a CLUB 400 crappy tire raft with just a life jacket and a cooler full of "water". They fire dept. was fine with everything we had.