Roger Long wrote:
wrote
Your premise is wrong. Boating is far easier to do safely than
flying.
....
The boating I was doing last summer, essentially single handing a 32
foot sailboat around a busy commercial harbor, ...
offered for more opportunities to hurt or kill someone than .. flying ...
in good weather in a simple airplane). ...

No, it didn't. If you'd had a fit or a heart attack or gone blind
while handling your boat you might have done a little property damage
but would have stood a good chance of getting medical attention and
living and it's unlikely that anyone else would have been seriously
endangered. A disabled pilot can not be evacuated from an airborne
plane and the plane has a great deal of potential energy (height and
fuel) and it is certain to impact the earth causing significant damage
to itself and endangering anyone in the area.

-- Tom.

Roger Long writes:

As a just (self) grounded private pilot, it does seem strange to go
out and do something that involves just as much responsibility and
requires just as much skill (at least to do safely) with out all the
training and oversight involved in flying aircraft.

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.

wrote in message
ps.com...

Roger Long wrote:
...
As a just (self) grounded private pilot, it does seem strange
to go
out and do something that involves just as much responsibility
and
requires just as much skill (at least to do safely) with out
all the
training and oversight involved in flying aircraft. Boat
licensing is
probably overdue but I still hate to see it coming up over the
horizon.

Your premise is wrong. Boating is far easier to do safely than
flying.

Exactly. Consider the docking manouevre; off centre at 3kts is
very different from being off centre at 100kts. Consider the
effects of bad weather against fuel planning; running out of fuel
because you couldn't get into a port is not a consideration of a
boat. Consider incapacitated crew . . . and so on.

Back to Roger's point. European practice on licencing is
interesting.

Great Britain probably has the most challenging sailing conditions
in Europe, and has no governmental requirement for licencing or
insuring leisure sailors. Nor do vessels used solely for leisure
have to be registered. Some marinas insist on vessels having third
party insurance, and some charterers want to see competence
certificates. These are commercial arrangements only.

Over the rest of Europe and in the Mediterranean, certificates of
competence *and* third party insurance are governmental
requirements for anyone in charge of any vessel, with some
exceptions in some countries for small dinghies. These countries
have better weather factors, weaker tides (if any), fewer people
on the water, in fact, fewer reasons overall for needing licencing
(with the exception of controlling traffic on some inland
waterways, which are pretty crowded). However, most of these
countries had a bureaucratic infrastructure designed to handle
commercial traffic, and automatically applied commercial controls
to leisure sailing, which was a trivial activity immediately post
war (unlike Britain).

Of course, once bureaucrats have a task, they're reluctant to face
redundancy, preferring instead to argue the need for increased
control . . .

My views?

The most serious and frequent leisure accidents arise from small
high speed vessels. I don't mind if people wish to risk injuring
themselves, but third parties need to be protected. Governmental
intervention is not effective unless it is policed, and licencing
does not prevent road accidents. I'd like to go the insurance
route.

Any vessel with an energy content equivalent to 10kts on 16ft
should be third party insured. Probably best implemented by saying
'anything that can do more than 10kts, or is longer than 16' is to
carry third party insurance.' That may require boat registration
if the insurance is attached to the vessel, and if the insurance
is attached to the driver, insurance companies would probably
discount insurance to those with suitable certificates.

Policing? Random checks at launching points. Impound vessels not
covered by insurance.

Got that off my chest, I feel better now.

--
JimB
http://www.jimbaerselman.f2s.com/
for opinions comparing Greek cruising areas

You didn't answer my question. Are you a pilot or just spouting?

I wasn't talking about incapacitation anyway. You are right on that
point. I would sure rather have an incapacitating heart attack in a
boat than an airplane. I'd rather have a mild one in the plane
because I would be on the ground next to an ambulance in 10 minutes.

In the plane, I'm talking to a guy constantly who is looking at the
radar and advising my of the location of any traffic within about 10
miles, even the stuff that I could never hit but which might just
worry and distract me if I saw it. In the boat, I'm trying to be
psychic and figure out by their behavior which of the yahoos in 30
plus foot fast power boats actually know the right of way rules and
are sober enough see my boat. Meanwhile, I'm trying to navigate, keep
kids fingers from running around winches and into blocks, heads below
boom level, short tack and steer a quick turning boat with a big
Genoa while avoiding lobster pots, navigation buoys, anchored
fisherman, and other boats.

Hey, flying on a nice day is a piece of cake. The spaces are big so
things actually happen very slowly. I agree that it is less forgiving
if you screw up but, if you are trying to get everyone home without
even a band aid, commanding a sailboat can be way more hectic and a
big responsibility.

I came back to sailing after 15 years, 10 of which I just flew.
Returning with the mindset you develop in aviation is very
interesting. It trains you to look ahead and be safety conscious in a
very proactive way. Part of it could be that I'm older and wiser with
kids on board but sailing looks very different to me.

When I started flying, everyone who had sailed with me said that there
was no way they were ever getting in an airplane with me. I turned
out to be a very conservative and proficient (at least at my level)
pilot. I'm now a very different kind of sailor. Which doesn't mean I
don't want to take my boat up to Newfoundland.

Again, I'm curious. Are you a pilot?

--

Roger Long



wrote in message
ups.com...
Roger Long wrote:
wrote
Your premise is wrong. Boating is far easier to do safely than
flying.
...
The boating I was doing last summer, essentially single handing a
32
foot sailboat around a busy commercial harbor, ...
offered for more opportunities to hurt or kill someone than ..
flying ...
in good weather in a simple airplane). ...

No, it didn't. If you'd had a fit or a heart attack or gone blind
while handling your boat you might have done a little property
damage
but would have stood a good chance of getting medical attention and
living and it's unlikely that anyone else would have been seriously
endangered. A disabled pilot can not be evacuated from an airborne
plane and the plane has a great deal of potential energy (height and
fuel) and it is certain to impact the earth causing significant
damage
to itself and endangering anyone in the area.

-- Tom.

Every time I hear of a kid killed on a jet ski I think mandatory training is
a good idea.
Just as disturbing is knowing that there are plenty of "Rodney Dangerfields"
on the water (whenever I'm out there) exercising their right to display
their wealth or credit line with acres of fiberglass and not a of clue of
what they are doing. You can tell these guys as they are the ones blasting
past small craft without even a glance back to see if the small craft
survived the tsunami of a wake the huge POS threw.
I'm split on the subject of an operators license, but leaning hard towards
it as a good idea.
If you've ever ran a boat in S Florida during a weekend and aren't one of
those who can't seem to grasp a basic like passing to starboard, you might
feel the same way.
During a race put on by Cocoa Beach Yacht Club (Port Canaveral), a "captain"
(of a big, expensive boat) hailed a Trident submarine that was in the
approach channel and told them they would have to fall off as "We have the
right of way as we are a sailboat under sail in a race".
Hell, just teaching these boneheads the pecking order might keep them alive!
Probably should be kept at the State level, and States should institute out
of necessity and not as a revenue generator.
MMC
"Roger Long" wrote in message
...
Interesting thread on the Wooden Boat Magazine forum about New Jersey
being one of the first states to establish licensing for recreational
boat operators. I haven't tried to parse it to carefully (can't think
of any reason I would ever go to New Jersey, let alone stay there the
triggering 90 days) but it sounds like it could apply to non residents
or someone passing through (slowly).

Has anyone here been tracking this? NJ boat dealers must be having
cows and kittens all at the same time.

As a just (self) grounded private pilot, it does seem strange to go
out and do something that involves just as much responsibility and
requires just as much skill (at least to do safely) with out all the
training and oversight involved in flying aircraft. Boat licensing is
probably overdue but I still hate to see it coming up over the
horizon.

--
Roger Long

"Roger Long" wrote in message
...

You didn't answer my question. Are you a pilot or just
spouting?

Come on, Roger. His arguments are valid whether he's a pilot or
not.

The consequences of error in aviation are so great that it is
vital to ensure that errors are very rare, and recoverable. That
means that all the people involved (not just the pilots) are well
trained, and flying is only conducted in conditions safe for the
particular aircraft, the particular pilot and the particular
airfield. For the system to work, every participant has to
understand sets of standard operating procedures, and sets of
emergency procedures. Hence licences.

Errors in sailing are much more frequent and have a much wider
variety of sources, many due to working with high forces and crude
machinery. But their consequences are relatively trivial. Yes,
cuts and bruises, maybe lost fingers. Yes, collisions, with other
craft and with the ground - but at such low energy levels that
catastophic outcomes are very rare. Yes, man overboard - but at
least that's only one of the crew gone, and with a good team, he's
recoverable.

In my opinion, most sailing risks arise from errors in operating
the machinery, rather than the sailing skills. Licencing isn't
likely to help this. First aid training might dig you out of the
hole afterwards.

Hey, flying on a nice day is a piece of cake.

But commercial flying doesn't always throw you a nice day.
Especially in northern latitudes.
--
JimB
http://www.jimbaerselman.f2s.com/
for opinions comparing Greek cruising areas

Roger Long wrote:
Sorry, I didn't mean it that way. I spent one of the nicest years of
my life in NJ. I just don't have any boating plans for south of Cape
Cod. My interest is to the north and east.

And I have cruised Maine to my heart's content for over 20 years and never
regretted a minute. It's just that I lose it when I suspect that this
place, or _any_ place, is suffering abuse without sufficient investigation.

Cheers.

--
Good luck and good sailing.
s/v Kerry Deare of Barnegat
http://kerrydeare.comcast.net

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.

Roger Long wrote:

In the plane, I'm talking to a guy constantly who is looking at the
radar and advising my of the location of any traffic within about 10
miles, even the stuff that I could never hit but which might just
worry and distract me if I saw it. In the boat, I'm trying to be
psychic and figure out by their behavior which of the yahoos in 30
plus foot fast power boats actually know the right of way rules and
are sober enough see my boat. Meanwhile, I'm trying to navigate, keep
kids fingers from running around winches and into blocks, heads below
boom level, short tack and steer a quick turning boat with a big
Genoa while avoiding lobster pots, navigation buoys, anchored
fisherman, and other boats.

Again, I'm curious. Are you a pilot?


An interesting discussion Roger. I'm not a pilot. I always assumed
that flying was more dangerous than sailing but I get your point.
Flying really is quite safe. I think it would be interesting to see
what the insurance folks think. How many folks are killed/injured and
how many liability claims are made regarding boating compared to flying?
The fact that flying is closely regulated is what makes it very safe.
Boating, being very unregulated, is probably a bigger risk for
insurers. It is probably the insurers who will ultimately drive
licensing because eventually they won't insure unlicensed boaters.

Gary

It's a lot more complex than that in the insurance aspects. I was
just forced out of flying primarily by the insurance situation.
Here's a fix on the current situation:

Cost to add boating endorsement to our catastrophic liability umbrella
policy: $31 and a quick phone call.

Cost to add the same for aviation: $675 and requirements for
underlying insurance that no one in the real world could meet
effectively insulating the umbrella carriers from aviation risks.

This isn't so much a measure of actual risk but of tort jury behavior.
Juries tend to think that flying is crazy so you are guilty before you
leave the ground.

Highly trained and careful pilot goes out and gets in over his head in
unexpectedly bad weather when some otherwise minor problems distract
him. Four people die. Guy with more bucks than brains goes out and
buys too much powerboat and heads of with zero training and crashes it
drunk. Four people die. Juries will hand out about ten times as much
money in the first case. Insurance rates reflect this.

The risk to insurers is measured by the $31 / $675 ratio above but
that has little to do with the level of risk to the individuals in
either a boat or an airplane.

--

Roger Long



"Gary" wrote in message
news4aYf.216280$H%4.84486@pd7tw2no...
Roger Long wrote:

In the plane, I'm talking to a guy constantly who is looking at the
radar and advising my of the location of any traffic within about
10 miles, even the stuff that I could never hit but which might
just worry and distract me if I saw it. In the boat, I'm trying to
be psychic and figure out by their behavior which of the yahoos in
30 plus foot fast power boats actually know the right of way rules
and are sober enough see my boat. Meanwhile, I'm trying to
navigate, keep kids fingers from running around winches and into
blocks, heads below boom level, short tack and steer a quick
turning boat with a big Genoa while avoiding lobster pots,
navigation buoys, anchored fisherman, and other boats.

Again, I'm curious. Are you a pilot?


An interesting discussion Roger. I'm not a pilot. I always assumed
that flying was more dangerous than sailing but I get your point.
Flying really is quite safe. I think it would be interesting to see
what the insurance folks think. How many folks are killed/injured
and how many liability claims are made regarding boating compared to
flying? The fact that flying is closely regulated is what makes it
very safe. Boating, being very unregulated, is probably a bigger
risk for insurers. It is probably the insurers who will ultimately
drive licensing because eventually they won't insure unlicensed
boaters.

Gary