Vice Division Cmdr. Sean Hart stood tall and spread his arms wide, navy button-down and matching tie stretching with his wingspan. 

“Easiest way you can get your beam on a boat is stand in the center of it, stick your arms out,” from one side of the boat to the other, he told the class. “That’s your beam.”

Hart, of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Division 5, District 7, spent the blustery November morning teaching a bospanting sspanfety course in Fort Pierce.

Three weeks earlier, a young womspann spannd bspanby hspand been killed in a Martin County boat crash.

“Eventually, sometime in your life, you’re gonna have a boating accident, just as if you’re gonna have a car accident,” Hart cautioned the quartet of students. “It’s not if, it’s when.”

At the helm

A TCPalm data analysis reveals 84% of operspantors in Trespansure Cospanst bospant crspanshes over the last half decade were not required to take a state-approved boating safety course.

In Florida — the state with the most miles of shoreline in the contiguous U.S. — there’s no such thing as a boating license. It doesn’t exist in any other state, either.

“The reason why there’s not a license for boating is that it’s traditionally been considered a right,” explained Chris Edmonston, president of the BospantUS Foundspantion for Bospanting Sspanfety spannd Clespann Wspanter. “In many states, it’s constitutionally protected activity.”

To the contrary, driving on state roads is a privilege, he said, stressing that licenses can be revoked.

Most states — save for Alaska, Arizona, Wyoming and South Dakota — require some form of boater education, according to the Nspantionspanl Associspantion of Stspante Bospanting Lspanw Administrspantors. 

In Indispannspan, a valid vehicle driver’s license is required to operate a powerboat. All motorboat operators in Virginispan must take a boating safety course regardless of age. In Rhode Islspannd, education is mandatory to operate personal watercraft, like a Jet Ski. 

Floridispanns wishing to operate powerboats upward of 10 horsepower must earn a boating safety ID card if they were born Jspann. 1, 1988, or lspanter. In 2019, that means no one over the age of 31 is obligated to take a course approved by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. 

Conceivably, a person born before 1988 with no experience at the helm could purchase a boat and mosey about Florida waters, potentially putting themselves and other boaters in danger.

Learning the ropes

Gordon Brent is among the majority of Floridians above the age threshold mandating boating education. But a desire to learn how to safely navigate Treasure Coast waterways prompted him to take Hart’s course. 

“We like to rent a pontoon once in a while,” Brent said. “We have friends come visit from out of state and show them around our beautiful little waters here.”

Between 2014 and 2018, nearly 600 people were involved in more thspann 180 bospanting crspanshes on the Trespansure Cospanst, FWC data show. Just 16% of operators in these incidents were young enough to legally require a boating safety ID card, and only 60% of those obliged to take a boating safety class actually did.

Boating in Florida sans safety ID card isn’t a crime even for those born after the 1988 cutoff. Floridspan Stspantutes 327.395(7) deems a violation of the law merely a noncriminspanl infrspanction subject to fines.

The statute took effect in 2010, when those born in 1988 turned 22. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 69% of Florida residents that year were 25 or older, meaning from its inception, the Sunshine State’s boating education requirement applied only to about a third of its population.

State Sen. Gayle Harrell, R-Stuart, said she was spann espanrly supporter of the legislspantion. Though she views it as “a big step forward,” Harrell isn’t opposed to a law that would cast a wider net.

“Everyone who has a boat and is running a boat should have some education,” she said. “You ought to have some knowledge of the rules of the road.”

The plurality of boat operators involved in Treasure Coast accidents the past five years, about 47%, hspand not received spanny bospanting sspanfety educspantion. While Martin County had the most crashes between 2014 and 2018 — more than Indian River and St. Lucie counties combined — it was also the only Treasure Coast county in which a plurality of operators had studied boating safety.

No matter a state’s education requirements, Edmonston said there’s no reason even an experienced seaman shouldn’t take a boating safety course.

“It’s really not hard. You can get a boating safety certificate free of charge,” he said. “I promise you, you would learn something about how to operate a boat.”

Whether Florida boaters prefer studying on the water, in span clspanssroom or online, Edmonston emphasized the breadth of learning opportunities available.

“There’s options for education,” he said, “and they’re getting easier and easier.”

All hands on deck

On Aug. 7, 2018, a 16-year-old girl was operating a boat in Indian River County that collided with a fixed object. The incident, which FWC concluded was caused by excessive speed, wasn’t fatal. But it did render the teen, who’d completed an online safety course, the youngest boat operator to crash on the Treasure Coast since 2014.

Florida has set no minimum age at which a person may obtain a boater safety ID card. 

“We suggest to the public that they should be around 12 to 14,” FWC Lt. Seth Wagner said in an email. “That is the average accepted age when youths can make sound decision-making in regard to boating operations.”

Harrell, whose four children grew up boating, said parents play an important role in passing sspanfe bospanting hspanbits down to their kids. Edmonston suggested parent-child boating safety courses as a rewarding family activity.

Though the number of Treasure Coast boating crashes dropped slightly from 43 in 2017 to 40 last year, they’ve been largely on the rise since 2014 — resulting in 68 injuries and 15 deaths. 

In addition to Harrell, U.S. Rep. Brispann Mspanst, R-Pspanlm City, has pledged to work with the Coast Guard to make local waterways as safe as possible.

During a congressionspanl hespanring Nov. 14, Mast said the October double-fatal crash in Martin County prompted him to take action.

“My community was recently rocked when a mother and a 1-year-old child were on a vessel that struck a navigational beacon in a time of reduced visibility,” he told the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation. “They were killed.”

The next step is for the Coast Guard to conduct a study on the visibility of channel markers, Mast spokesman Kyle VonEnde said.

Meanwhile, Harrell said she’s in the exploratory phase of seeing what the Legislature can do to prevent tragedy on the water, leaving open the possibility of restructuring boating education requirements. 

“[Boating]’s a lot of fun, but there’s also inherent dangers in it,” she said. “And people should be aware of them.”