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Opposing Tacks Taken About Safe Boating

John Holyoke, Bangor Daily NewsLast week I shared my view on a recently introduced bill that would require Mainers to eventually take a safety course before operating motorboats in the state.

My take: The folks who are causing problems on our waters today wouldn’t be likely to change their behavior because they’d taken a safety course.

Rigorous enforcement of existing laws, I submitted, was a key to increased safety.

As you might imagine, I received a few responses to that column.

Some readers agreed. Others didn’t. Here, in the interest of furthering the debate on the matter, are one of each.

First, reader Larry Ferrell of Newport checked in with a perspective he gained through years on the water. Ocean, bay, lake … Ferrell has been there, done that.

Here’s some of what he had to say:

“For once I totally disagree with you,” Ferrell began. “For over 30 years I have firmly believed that anyone out in a boat, in a lake, a river, or the ocean, should have a boating license obtained by attending a boating class and taking a test.“Just like all hunters must take a hunting safety class before being allowed to go into the woods with a gun. Just like they make us take a driving test and have a driving license to drive a car on the highway. Making the people who perform these activities qualified to do so protects the rest of us also performing them.

“When I first started boating on Long Island Sound in the 1970s, I found that if I took the Coast Guard Auxiliary Boating course, I could get 10 percent off my boating insurance. After attending the 20-hour or so course, I was firmly convinced that it should be mandatory for all boaters. It covered far more than just boating safety. Subsequently, more than a few times when I was crossing Long Island sound in my little 24-foot cabin cruiser, confidently navigating in the fog (pre-GPS) someone would motor up in a million-dollar boat and yell down to me, ‘Where am I?’“They had the money to go boating but not the common sense. And that is where Maine is letting its boating population down right now. Some 38 other states have boating license requirements.”

Ferrell maintains that there is plenty to be learned in a boating safety course, and many of those things wouldn’t be apparent to a casual observer.“There is a whole lot more to safe boating than just common sense,”he wrote. “There are currently no more requirements to run a boat up and down the Maine coast line than to put a boat into Moosehead or some small Maine lake. You obviously have not had a boating course and are not familiar with some of the complexities of operating a boat safely for more than just a Maine lake.“A boating course covers some of the following subjects that cannot be discerned just using good common sense:

“Aids to Navigation: Types of buoys, like hazard buoys, channel navigation buoys, slow wake buoys, shallow areas. Lighthouses with all the types of lights: red flashing lights, yellow flashing lights, four-second white flashing light, requirements for anchor buoys.

“Rules of the road: Who has right of way between power boats, sailing boats, row boats, personal water craft, man-of-war, tug boats, towing barges.

“Required on board safety equipment (dependent on boat length): lighting, fire fighting, life jackets, life buoys, etc.

“Boating communication requirements: Radar, Long range radio, etc.

“Navigation: Use of charts, compass and all related tools including GPS,” he wrote.

Ferrell said that he has found that many folks aren’t willing to put in the time to learn those details, even after making significant investments in their craft.

“Some people, after spending tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) will take the time to learn how to navigate and how to get safely from point A to point B to protect their investment,” Ferrell wrote. “But not all. And I have met too many out on the water that won’t take any time to learn anything. And I feel that their ignorance puts me in peril.” While Ferrell made some good points, reader Robert Beaulieu of Mapleton expressed another viewpoint altogether.

One of Beaulieu’s major points of contention when it comes to the boating safety bill is cost. Specifically, haven’t taxpayers paid enough?

“I just finished reading your column in today’s paper regarding the proposed new requirement for boaters to take some type of safety course before operating a motorboat,” Beaulieu wrote.“I must say I am totally against such a move. How is it going to be financed? More taxes of some type? That is something we don’t need! As we have seen in the past, this state and country continues to try to control our every move for the sake of safety for everyone.“Your one comment that hit home was, COMMON SENSE. No schooling is going to put this into everyone’s head who operates anything, be it a boat, car, ATV, snowmobile or whatever,” he wrote. “Look at all of the current laws that are in effect today for our personal safety and how many are not followed every day? More is not going to help as far as I am concerned.“Perhaps more safety information added to the law books pertaining to each activity would go just as far and not add more unnecessary cost,”

Beaulieu concluded. “We just can’t keep getting hit with more cost of any kind. We have enough laws on the books already with not enough law enforcement to enforce them. I say NO MORE. Stress common sense.”

Posted In: Boat Safety on January 22, 2008 Comments (1,018)

1,018 Responses to “Opposing Tacks Taken About Safe Boating”

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