[capt. norm]

I'd love to see a testing system for this country's boaters.

How would you like to go for a drive in your car, with just about every driver on the road allowed to break the rules of the road (and not even have to know them) while you must obey every regulation to the max.

That pretty much describes what happens to licensed captains trying to herd large vessels through narrow channels while avoiding all the "monkey boats" zooming around every which way.

It can get really hairy when you're coming through the channel in a ship that takes about a half-mile or more to stop, and you can't steer outside the channel as that would put you aground.

[Quigley]

“I’d love to see a testing system for this country’s boaters”

I don’t know about other states but Alabama has required a vessel license for 7 or 8 years. It applies to everyone who operates a motorized vessel and is directly tied to your automobile license. Get caught operating your boat drunk and you lose you privilege to drive a car. It has cut the death rate for boating accidents by taking most incompetent boaters off the water.

[metesky]

Even when they do think they know the rules of the road they seem to think the rules are carved in stone. Several years back a doofuss with more money than brains, thinking "sail takes precedence", decided to cut in front of the Nantucket ferry. His new 65' got cut in half right in the inner channel. That ferry takes from 1/4 to 1/2 mile to put the brakes on.

Live and learn...