I don't agree with Capt. Maurice's comment that requiring training, testing, and licensing for boaters won't accomplish much. I do agree that it won't completely eliminate incompetent, inconsiderate, dangerous, or ignorant boaters. I know pilots who have gone through all the training and testing and gotten their certficates, yet I will not set foot in an airplane they are piloting. Some are simply well-meaning but incompetent pilots and some are downright dangerous. A licence is not an automatic indicator of competence, it simply means the person passed the required tests. But I have seen many boaters ask questions or do things that indicate they simply have not been exposed to the right information, or the right way to operate some aspect of their boat. They aren't stupid or inconsiderate or blatantly opposed to training or education--- they simply don't know. Boats, like airplanes, are not inherently dangerous but they are unforgiving. Make a mistake in maneuvering or navigation and the consequences can be severe and irreversible. People do not set out in a boat with the idea of going aground, sinking, or putting their lives at risk. Sometimes things end up this way because of stupid behavior. But perhaps more often than not things end up this way because the person in command simply did the wrong thing through ignorance or by making the wrong decision thinking it was the right one. There are two ways to stack the odds in your favor when operating a boat, plane, etc. One is learn by your mistakes. This works great as long as the mistakes don't sink the boat or kill you. The other is to be trained to operate a boat correctly from the outset. Outfits like the Navy seem to feel this is the better way to go. In course of gathering information for my current book project I spent the last fifteen years or so learning as much as I could about WWII PT boats and their crews. Not only was there a formal PT training school in Melville, Rhode Island that all PT crewmembers and officers went through, but training went on constantly in the field. Imagine what the end result would be if instead of this plan, they simply turned an 80' PT over to 11 guys who may or may not have had any boating experience and said, "have at it." Which is what happens when most people buy a boat. My wife and I bought a 36-foot, 27,000-pound, twin-engine trawler. The only requirement we had to meet was the price. Nobody even showed us how to start the engines, let alone how to anticipate how the boat would act as power was reduced in a strong crosswind as we approached the one empty spot at a dock. We've been lucky so far--- we haven't hit anything hard enough to do any damage. But there have been many, many times where we easily could have made a simple wrong decision or miscalculation and gotten into serious trouble. In many cases the consequences of our actions would not have been based on a mental role of the dice had I been required to be trained on the handling, maneuvering, etc. aspects of operating our boat. The challenge of operating a boat, plane, or vehicle is not the physical manipuation of the controls. From a physical point of view an airplane is incredibly easy to fly and a boat is incredibly easy to make go through the water. I would be willing to bet that you could put just about every skipper on this list at the controls of a 3,600 horsepower, 80' Elco PT boat and that person could make the boat go forward, back up, and turn. I was able to do that with an RNLI 47' motor lifeboat in the UK the other year. But what I lacked was the knowledge of the boat's systems, the knowledge of how the boat would react in an almost infinite number of conditions, and the judgement to do everything from accurately calculating how fast the boat would slow down approacing a dock when the power was reduced to deciding how to take a large wave. I'm not saying that training and testing can accomplish everything people like Capt. Maurice have learned from years of experience. There is no way it can do this. Nor will it eliminate the process of learning from mistakes. But like pilot training, it will give a boater a huge head start on how to operate a boat correctly and intelligently, and it will provide a solid foundation on which to build using experience and ongoing learning. Will an effective required training and testing program mean that all boaters will be competent? Of course not. Despite all the initial training and ongoing field training, there were PT skippers and crewmembers who had no busines being on the boats, and boats and lives were lost as a result of this. I believe Arild's comments about the difficulties of establishing any sort of meaningful and effective training, testing, and licensing system for boaters are right on. But the difficulty of getting an effective program created and implemented is a separate issue from whether or not a good training and testing program would do any good. We assume that it won't work, that people will ignore it, that they'll figure out a way to get around it, and that boating safety won't be improved. All I can do is point to aviation. The training and testing program works, people who want to be pilots can't ignore it, they can't get around it, and while it's true there are people who crash airplanes, the aviation safety record is excellent. Certainly vastly better than if people could simply plunk down the money for an airplane and "have at it." C. Marin Faure GB36-403 "La Perouse" Bellingham, Washington

Hi All My plan was to buy a boat in N America and cruise from Alaska, through Panama and back to Canada. This would take several years. I therefore began my research to establish the requirements for visas, marine qualifications, ship's radio, statutory safety equipment etc etc. Without going into details you can imagine the difficulties I had of establishing which government department has responsibilities for the above. Immigration matters alone seem to be spread over several departments (Homeland Security seems to be at the top of every tree). Websites have vast amounts of information available but it never seems to include the specific bit you are looking for. I never found what I was looking for. Back to Licensing. My qualifications are based on the Royal Yachting Association (RYA) Motor Cruising Scheme. These include Coastal Skipper (Yachtmaster Offshore), Powerboat Advanced, International Certificate of Competence (including European Inland Waterways) and DSC / VHF Certificate of Competence. Only the first is a voluntary course, the others are required by law. Hundreds of thousands of leisure boaters take training courses every year in UK and nearly all are on a voluntary basis. The RYA opposes statutory training and licensing requirements as they oppose the statutory registration of leisure craft. (It will come). We continually argue, discuss and debate these issues just as you do in USA. There is no easy answer. Arild (as always) raises points which have to be tackled if licensing is to be accepted as fair. My qualifications have a "tidal" endorsement. Users on lakes, rivers and non-tidal waters (eg Mediterranean and Baltic Seas) are endorsed "non-tidal". Training and licensing need not be compulsory. If the insurance companies acknowledge the benefits of training then an appropriate discount on premiums may encourage a larger take-up of training courses. BTW - I understand that the world's merchant marine officers are mostly trained, experienced and qualified and yet we have another tanker (chemical this time, which was presumably under the command of one of these officers) polluting the English Channel. Go figure! >We assume that it won't >work, that people will ignore it, that they'll figure out a way to get >around it, and that boating safety won't be improved. C. Marin Faure