Bryan wrote:
"Varis" wrote in message
oups.com...
This seems to be one of the perpetual boating discussion topics in
Finland as well. We still live in a free wild world, though there has
been some effort in building a formal education system. One fear is
that if the authorities get involved in setting up the system it will
introduce quite a bit of costs to burden boaters.

By all means the beaurocratic BS must be kept to a minimum and the education
should be immediately available to all and free. No one wants to buy their
boat, or God help us a PWC, then spend the summer taking a class before they
can put the boat in the water!

I see 2 levels of certification: a mandatory quickie information only
computer course before registration of the vehicle can occur and a longer
voluntary hands on course.


Our law in Washington State, enacted in 2005, allows a very short
window of time after taking delivery of boat to get the education.
(This was included at the insistence of the boat dealers, who, rather
understandably, didn't want to see a lot of sales stall out when the
buyer was hot to trot and then realized he hasn't taken the course).

One of the neat aspects of our state law is that there really isn't a
new governmental department created to oversee this. The training
itself can be any course that is "approved" by the regulatory agency
(in our state it is the State Parks Department), and the list includes
the typical courses taught by the USCG Auxiliary or the Power Squadron.
In fact, anybody who can produce a certificate showing that they ever
completed such a course has automatically met the requirements.

In our state the "Boatsmart" course offered by both the USPS and the
USCGA meets the education qualification, and that is often offered in a
one-Saturday full day format.

Washington issues cards showing that the boater has met the minimum
education requirements. The cards cost $10 or $15, and are good for a
lifetime without renewal.
The only additional future cost would be for a replacement card if the
boater should happen to lose the original. The Parks Department is
using the card fees to pay the salaries of the people they hired to run
the database of "educated" boaters and send out the card, so it is a
self-funding program.

Our law phases in over a period of years, with the youngest boaters
required to meet the requirements first. Each year the age group that
is required to show proof of boating education expands upward by a few
years.

The law applies to everybody except old fossils like me, born before
1955. I guess the state figures that by the time enough years go by to
where our age group would be included, we'll all be senile and
unteachable anyway.

***************
We must have had a group of students down on the fuel dock last
weekend. I was topping off my fuel.....($400!....but I'll go hundreds
of miles and would not need any more fuel until spring if I didn't want
to have the tanks relatively full for winter)... when a group of mostly
men followed a young female instructor down to the dock. Everybody was
wearing life jackets, which is an unusual sight when you see people
walking out onto the fuel dock from shore. While I was fueling up, they
gathered around the pump and the instructor lectured them about proper
fueling procedures. I was glad that I had followed all the basics,
(including having a petro diaper positioned at the vent to intercept
any accidental burps). It would have been embarrassing to be pointed
out as the example of "how not to fuel your boat."