Richard J Kinch wrote in
:

On the other hand, with this course, in Florida at least, my
11-year-old kid can run 100s of horsepower of powerboat around where
he pleases, solo. And 9.999 horsepower and 16 feet without it.



That, alone, is a great reason for licensing...controlling who can do
what, safely....

It's terribly stupid that a blind man can, legally, drop by a brokerage
and buy a 60' Hatteras FBMY with 1800HP diesels, get at the helm by
himself and drive away from the dock....and not break any laws.

All he needs is MONEY.

One would hope, but not be certain, that any real licensing authority
would notice that he was blind and refuse to give him a license to drive
that Hat, at all.

The Boat Lobby has kept testing and licensing away from boating for
decades. Boats, believe it or not, are a LOT of impulse buying, impulse
buying they would not do if they had to take a course and pass a test
before being allowed to drive over the rest of us. Boat dealers must be
really ****ed.

I don't want your 11-year-old driving around the harbor in a CC with twin
250s, no matter how stupid you are to let him do it. His little CGAux
safe boating course didn't tell him how to drive the boat, how to
navigate, how to use the power to dock it.