Surely all boatowners should be qualified?

[Chris_Stannard]

Regret I cannot make Eastleigh from Cowes. I do however have a question, or rather a request.

The Background

As I sit in my flat looking over the Solent I watch the many yachts that come into Cowes. Especially at night it is obvious that many of them do not know what they are doing as you see boats motoring with their tricolours on, and in some cases with their steaming and bow lights and indeed even their anchor light. Short of giving them and auto changeover switch with engine start one wonders how to make people get it right.

I have a problem in that my wife will not let me go into Yarmouth in the summer not because I cannot handle my boat, but becuse she is afraid of the many idiots who cannot and who create mayhem there every weekend. I have also seen a power boat driver climb into his 45 foot 30 knot plus boat when completely drunk and then drive off down the Solent on a busy Sunday afternoon. I have to say that I stayed in harbour to allow him to get well clear.
I recently did an article on RNLI Safety Sea Checks for my club magazine and used data from the RNLI on call outs for lifeboats. The number of peoploe who got stranded, called out the lifeboat with maechanical problems etc, was almost unbelievable.

When I lived in HongKong, many years ago, you could not take a boat out of the harbour unless there was a ticketed person onboard, and I mean a 14foot waterski boat. It did not stop people owning boats.

MY POINT
I believe that every boat should have a qualified person onboard when it goes out, okay so you can say less than 4 metres and only capable of 6 knots the rules do not apply. I consider that the arguments I have seen put forward by the RYA are spurious andcome into the patroniosing class of "Daddy know's what is best, and you have to accept it." Licences are required on the highway, I believe that they should also be required for boats and that we need a proper debate on the subject to propose and bring forward a sensible system before Mr Prescott and his ilk impose some half baked system on us.

Chris Stannard