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Boater Safety Course Offered That Mirrors One Proposed in Legislature

March 05, 2008 - ROCKPORT -- A comprehensive eight-week course in safe-boating fundamentals is being offered this winter under the auspices of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary's Penobscot Bay flotilla, which operates in the midcoast between Belfast and the waters south of Rockland. In an unusual development, the course begins late this month as the Legislature in Augusta considers a contioversial bill that would require recreational boaters in Maine to take a safety course much like the Auxiliary's before going on the water.

The bill would set an age-based safety education requirement beginning in 2011 for noncommercial motorboat and personal watercraft operators aged 20 and younger. Older boaters would be required to comply in age group intervals by 2016.

State Representative Thomas W. Watson (D-Bath), sponsor ofthe bill, said he was prompted to act by a number of incidents over the past year. One was the nighttime accident last August on Long Lake in which a collision between two boats killed two people. Their deaths were among 16 in the state last year. By comparison, 38 states that require safety training posted fewer than half as many deaths.

"Boating safety begins and ends with the boat operator and not with the boat itself," Watson, a lawyer, retired Navy officer and a Master Maine Guide, said as his bill was readied this year. "Most of the safety problems on our waters are caused by inappropriate or uninformed behavior and are not due to the type of boat or its horsepower."

Watson said he based his bill on model legislation from the National Association of Boating Safety Law Administrators, which works closely with the Auxiliary, the U.S. Power Squadrons and slate authorities to coordinate safety materials and principles. Watson predicted his measure would reach the Maine House floor on a divided committee vote. He said it likely faces vigorous opposition, a reflection the boating community's traditional resistance to regulation.

That prediction proved accurate when the Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee voted 7 to 4 to report Watson's bill with an ought-not-to-pass recommendation.

The Auxiliary course, taught at Camden Hills Regional High School in Rockport, offers recreational boaters 20 hours of instruction in boat types and gear, boat trailering and handling under way, as well as an introduction to navigation buoys and rules, piloting, knot-tying, weather and radio communication. While the focus is on ocean boating, principles covered in the course are easily adaptable to inland waters. Course participants who pass the final written exam are awarded a Coast Guard Auxiliary certificate that many marine insurers accept as eligibility for an insurance discount.


SOURCE: FREE PRESS

DATE: 02-21-2008


Lakes: Long Lake
Regions: Sebago, Mid Coast


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