TWL: Basic Boating Education and the Vancouver Barge incident
I am a strong opponent to licensing. It doesn't do squat, except give the
gov't another look into my life and another avenue into my pocket with its
usual low to no return.
That does not mean I am an opponent of education, mandatory or otherwise.
The law could say that you must have a completion certificate from a USPS or
USCGA course, period. Licensing and safety don't go hand-in-hand, but
education and safety do, and you don't need licensing to get the later. As
a matter of fact you usually get some dumbed down course. If you want to
get it screwed up get the gov't involved (look at the airports today-I feel
safer on the planes than in the airports, that is until armed marshals are
aboard - remember Kent State).
Stan Kurowski
Beaver Rock (Ex-Fisheries Patrol Boat, Canadian)(
http://beaverrock.home.attbi.com )
Anacortes, Wa
Anybody who is a strong opponent to licensing on the water had better do
his/her part and encourage everybody they know who does not have the
equivalent of a basic boating safety course behind them to get
same soonest.
Rich Gano
CALYPSO (GB-42-295)
Southport, FL
I have seen a post or two denigrating basic boating education, saying in
effect that it gives the newbie no information about detecting and avoiding
tows.
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! Who told you that? I want his name and serial number.
I teach basic boating safety, and barges are a fact of life around here. No
person I have taught in the last ten years has escaped the course without
hearing from at least one of our USPS instructors all about tows and their
inability to maneuver and to see you over the tow up forward. We do not
have tows astern here , but we discuss them anyway.
I am a STRONG advocate for mandatory "something." If boaters continue to
get killed because they have some wacky sense that it is their god-given
right to endanger themselves and others on the water in sizeable boats with
not even a basic boating safety course under their belts, Uncle Sam and/or
your states are going to darned well take it upon themselves to put
mandatory licensing in place.
My "something" requirement could be satisfied with a boating safety course.
If people who go through the course then have problems, the course can be
modified to cover any holes. If after that they still continue to have dumb
and costly fatal problems like Vancouver - mandatory USCG formal licensing,
and all the agony that entails, wouldn't hurt my feelings a bit.
Anybody who is a strong opponent to licensing on the water had better do
his/her part and encourage everybody they know who does not have the
equivalent of a basic boating safety course behind them to get same soonest.
Rich Gano
CALYPSO (GB-42-295)
Southport, FL
At 06:19 PM 2/23/02, you wrote:
Anybody who is a strong opponent to licensing on the water had better do
his/her part and encourage everybody they know who does not have the
equivalent of a basic boating safety course behind them to get same soonest.
The ugly little secret of so called licensing and mandatory education is
that the people who think these things up, have got enough soap in their
brains that they also think that young people should not be allowed to run
boats until they reach a certain age.
If there is any place where young people should be taught to do things at
as young an age as possible, it is running boats. The younger the better. I
made some minor mistakes in this regard with my three boys. The worst with
the 2 older ones. By the time I got the youngest, I had it about right.
The youngest who is now 13 is quite capable of running a 120' boat at night
in moderate traffic, with high speed ships about, tracking and estimating
the closest point of approach (CPA), using radar. On our run from The east
coast to Seattle when he was ten. He held down 2 shifts each day of 4
hours By the time we got to Costa Rica, he could do most of the collision
avoidance with little help from anyone else. I started him off, by taking
him on short 3 day trips to Seattle from Portland, when he was 6. The point
being that if you teach them early and let them tackle whatever they can
physically handle, they will generally grow into it.
In the case of the older boys, I waited until they were 10-12 before I took
them on trips and waited a year or more before I sent them out in the dink
by themselves. That was a mistake. If you wait till YOU think they are
ready, they may well balk, out of fear. Then you will have to coax them
into it. Which is just what I ran into.
Now I have some jackasses in this state telling me that since he is not 15
he can't run a boat with more than 9 horsepower, or some such silly nonsense.
If I sound annoyed about all this, you've got that right. If we restrict
kids from doing things until they are old enough that WE think they are
ready, you can be damn sure that it will be too late for the majority of
them. By that time they are too inhibited to want to try much of anything
new. If you think this just overblown rhetoric, go try talking any random
bunch of 13 year olds into taking a 12 foot boat out in the Straits of Juan
De Fuca, by themselves with the wind blowing 20 knots. ( assuming full
safety gear and a mother boat, standing by within a mile). You won't get
one taker in a thousand. And this sort of activity is childs' play,
compared to something really dangerous.
A fair share of the training I have been giving my kids, soon won't be
legal inside of 3 miles from shore. If you don't train them when they are
6, they won't be ready for the 10 year old stuff and then the won't be
ready for the 12 year old stuff, and how are they going to be ready for a
CG license at 18, if they can't run a small boat with more than a few
horsepower or maybe no horsepower until they are 15 or more. Why not just
make it 25 and be done with it. What all this means is that if you want to
teach your kids while they are young, you will have to take them out of
sight and then break the law, because it won't be legal to let them use the
equipment they need to be trained on. Great, just great. And if you have
ANY problem, well them the correctness police will be all over you because,
you were doing something which is unsafe for children!
I submit to you that the people who think that kids shouldn't be allowed to
do things until they are "grownup enough", will delay the age of learning
until it is way past too late.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions". And the mistaken belief
that kids grow up by being denied the opportunities to mature and exercise
judgement, is proving to be a costly mistake. I see it everywhere I go,
with children who are ill mannered, impatient and at the same time
resistant to attempting to do new things. And playing video games is not
what I call learning new things.
On the water training is in my estimation one of the very best training
grounds there is for young people. And all I see is more attempts to
prevent legitimate opportunities for this kind of activity.
Regards,
Mike
Capt. Mike Maurice
Near Portland Oregon.
Michael Maurice wrote:
Now I have some jackasses in this state telling me that since he is
not 15 he can't run a boat with more than 9 horsepower, or some such
silly nonsense.
Have to agree here. Getting the basic sense of how a boat feels is,
like bike riding or reading, something that will never get as deeply or
instinctively ingrained if postponed until adulthood. Having a basic
instinct of how to make a boat move frees up the thinking part of the
brain for broader based observation and decision making without getting
sidetracked by mental gymnastics about what happens when the rudder is
pointed one way and the lever on the left (or is it the right?) is
pushed to the front. Even more important, learning that seemingly
complex things aren't really magic or impossible does wonders for
developing sense of responsibility and self confidence. Taking a little
razz for not doing whatever with the peers is much more palatable when
the back part of your brain is saying "yeah, but does your dad let you
drive a TD25 cat along the edge of a very steep mountain?"
On the other hand, I can support some rules requiring an adult on board
for vessels over a certain length and HP.
My gut feeling is that the age thing is aimed directly at PWCs, AKA
"Satan's Little Helpers", and that the kids in a small boat fishing
thing is unfortunate collateral damage.
Regards,
KP
PS: "Income" property sold! Looking for GB 36 woodie, '69 or later,
single preferred.
It's a bit like the psychological bargain Christians or Muslims
strike with themselves: you agree to abandon for life your
ability to think straight; you accept a job-lot of fairy tales,
all kinds of absurdities; and in return for the effort it costs
to push your intellect back into bed every time you get up in
the morning, you're released from the big one, the fear of death.
Redmond O'Hanlon - Congo Journey
One of the best helmsmen I ever had aboard CALYPSO was eight years old. I
was alone upon the waters in a (I shudder to say it) sailbote at age 10 or
so. I was alone running the Elizabeth River at night in a motorboat from
ninth grade on, and I mean clear to the Naval Station Norfolk, ten miles
from home. So I have no problem with ability at any age.
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Maurice [mailto:mikem@yachtsdelivered.com]
Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2002 7:01 PM
To: Rich Gano
Cc: trawler-world-list@samurai.com
Subject: Re: TWL: Basic Boating Education and the Vancouver Barge
incident
At 06:19 PM 2/23/02, you wrote:
Anybody who is a strong opponent to licensing on the water had better do
his/her part and encourage everybody they know who does not have the
equivalent of a basic boating safety course behind them to get same
soonest.
The ugly little secret of so called licensing and mandatory education is
that the people who think these things up, have got enough soap in their
brains that they also think that young people should not be allowed to run
boats until they reach a certain age.
If there is any place where young people should be taught to do things at
as young an age as possible, it is running boats. The younger the better. I
made some minor mistakes in this regard with my three boys. The worst with
the 2 older ones. By the time I got the youngest, I had it about right.
The youngest who is now 13 is quite capable of running a 120' boat at night
in moderate traffic, with high speed ships about, tracking and estimating
the closest point of approach (CPA), using radar. On our run from The east
coast to Seattle when he was ten. He held down 2 shifts each day of 4
hours By the time we got to Costa Rica, he could do most of the collision
avoidance with little help from anyone else. I started him off, by taking
him on short 3 day trips to Seattle from Portland, when he was 6. The point
being that if you teach them early and let them tackle whatever they can
physically handle, they will generally grow into it.
In the case of the older boys, I waited until they were 10-12 before I took
them on trips and waited a year or more before I sent them out in the dink
by themselves. That was a mistake. If you wait till YOU think they are
ready, they may well balk, out of fear. Then you will have to coax them
into it. Which is just what I ran into.
Now I have some jackasses in this state telling me that since he is not 15
he can't run a boat with more than 9 horsepower, or some such silly
nonsense.
If I sound annoyed about all this, you've got that right. If we restrict
kids from doing things until they are old enough that WE think they are
ready, you can be damn sure that it will be too late for the majority of
them. By that time they are too inhibited to want to try much of anything
new. If you think this just overblown rhetoric, go try talking any random
bunch of 13 year olds into taking a 12 foot boat out in the Straits of Juan
De Fuca, by themselves with the wind blowing 20 knots. ( assuming full
safety gear and a mother boat, standing by within a mile). You won't get
one taker in a thousand. And this sort of activity is childs' play,
compared to something really dangerous.
A fair share of the training I have been giving my kids, soon won't be
legal inside of 3 miles from shore. If you don't train them when they are
6, they won't be ready for the 10 year old stuff and then the won't be
ready for the 12 year old stuff, and how are they going to be ready for a
CG license at 18, if they can't run a small boat with more than a few
horsepower or maybe no horsepower until they are 15 or more. Why not just
make it 25 and be done with it. What all this means is that if you want to
teach your kids while they are young, you will have to take them out of
sight and then break the law, because it won't be legal to let them use the
equipment they need to be trained on. Great, just great. And if you have
ANY problem, well them the correctness police will be all over you because,
you were doing something which is unsafe for children!
I submit to you that the people who think that kids shouldn't be allowed to
do things until they are "grownup enough", will delay the age of learning
until it is way past too late.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions". And the mistaken belief
that kids grow up by being denied the opportunities to mature and exercise
judgement, is proving to be a costly mistake. I see it everywhere I go,
with children who are ill mannered, impatient and at the same time
resistant to attempting to do new things. And playing video games is not
what I call learning new things.
On the water training is in my estimation one of the very best training
grounds there is for young people. And all I see is more attempts to
prevent legitimate opportunities for this kind of activity.
Regards,
Mike
Capt. Mike Maurice
Near Portland Oregon.
At 10:00 PM 02/23/2002 -0500, Michael Maurice wrote:
If there is any place where young people should be taught to do things at
as young an age as possible, it is running boats. The younger the better.
snip<<<
A fair share of the training I have been giving my kids, soon won't be
legal inside of 3 miles from shore. If you don't train them when they are
6, they won't be ready for the 10 year old stuff and then the won't be
ready for the 12 year old stuff, and how are they going to be ready for a
CG license at 18,
REPLY
I agree wholeheartedly with Mike.
The Royal Navy trained midshipsmen from age 8 and upwards.
By age 16 or so they were often commissioned as officers and given charge
of navy crews and sometimes smaller vessels.
The authorities does not want a population of independent minded people
capable of doing things for themselves.
Regards
Arild