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I know all of us are way to smart to need anything like this, but I ran across it today and found it very interesting.
http://www.boatingbasicsonline.com/nline.com/

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Thanks I think boaters should be informed, I think Joe should link this site for all not gust new boaters. Thanks for posting it, safe boating to all.
Guts

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Thanks for posting that for us Tom! Have you been out this week? I have been putting in at Cherry Point at Rockville lately. My wife stepped on a stingray on Tuesday and had to go right back in to the doctor. Went back again to Botany Island and had a great day. We should get these whalers together one day. I would love to see yours.
Take care.
Marty Durham

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Here in Virginia it's now required that all boat operators be licensed. There are stipulations on time frame of license requirement according to age.
http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/boating/...rement.asp
I believe that was the online class I used for my license. The class varied from painfully simple to information overload. I picked up a fair amount of info from the course. The only real aggravating part was the VA. course link had a timer on each page meaning you could not advance until timer finished and sometimes it was a long wait.
Most importantly the new law addresses some of the problems with some/not all brainless wonders on PWC's. Not to sound as if I hate PWC's because I don't, I just have evil thoughts about some of the operators.

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I think it's a Great Post "Tom", both to refresh the "Veteran" boater, and help out the person "new" to boating. I find it "Safest" to "ASSUME" that the boat heading toward's you does NOT know the rules, and to use "Caution". 70% of all marine accident's invlolve a "PWC".

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Great stuff! We have an on-line Boaters safety course here in Texas too. Here's a link to the site for those Texans interested: http://www.boat-ed.com/tx/index.htm/index.htm

As of right now it's optional to take but as a responsible boater, it's not a bad idea to do.

I think that PWC's...most of the time, are like pesky mosquito's on a camping trip buzzing around and annoying everyone. They certainly are fun to ride but the operators are clueless to safe boating operations around other boaters. I can say that most of the close calls I have been fortunate to survive, have been with a PWC encounter.

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Its not quite that bad.

PWCs are involved in ~24% of boating accidents.
Of those PWC accidents, ~70% involve crashing into a boat.

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NH law now requires all boat/pwc operators to have a safe boater education certificate. I studied the online materials and then took the one-day, instructor-led class, which includes taking the test at the end. It was well worth it.

http://www.boat-ed.com/nh/index.htm/index.htm

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I just took the course. thanks, ALOT of useful info that i did not know.took longer than i thought it would but passed.

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The idea to make everyone get an "Operator's" Lic. to pilot a boat sound's good but, we already do that for Automobiles and people still drive crazy.