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Dan Best

asked:
what does a licensed captain have that I do not
already have?

At the point the sea trial is taking place, the boat doesn't belong to
you yet. The owner and broker naturally would rather place the
responsibility for the safe operation of the vessel in the hands of a
licensed captain. It seems to me that the liability issues alone would
preclude allowing a prospective buyer from captaining it during the sea
trial. You will certainly be allowed to take the helm, maneuvering it
both under sail and power, but the responsibility will be in the hands
of the captain.

Also, no one has pointed out the obvious, so I'll go ahead and do so.
The purpose of a sea trial is to get the boat on the water, exercise all
it's systems and verify what works and doesn't work. Get the sails up
so you can see how they set, try the boat on all points of sail in an
attempt to detect problems in it's handling, etc. In my limited
experience buying boats, this is not a relaxed "day on the bay", but
rather a quick businesslike checkout of the boat and it's systems. You
should be treating it as an opportunity to discover things that are
wrong with the boat that can be used to either beat the owner down on
the price or to cause you to walk (run?) away from the deal.