This spring, recreational boating safety classes are filling up as older, experienced boaters realize they have until June 1 to obtain state boating safety certification cards, and volunteer groups and professional training schools have scheduled additional classes to handle the demand.
"Every day, people are waking up to the fact that they need a boating certificate," said Don Baker of Matawan, who heads the the U.S. Power Squadrons safety education efforts in New Jersey. "Because of the deadline now, the average age of the students now is much higher."
This year marks the completion of a phased-in requirement that all boaters age 16 and older — the minimum age for operating a power vessel or personal watercraft — carry a safety certification card. This year, boaters born before 1950 must make sure they have cards, or they can be fined.
State Police have offered the so-called test-out option to older boaters who believe they can pass the test without taking safety classes offered by private schools, the Power Squadrons or U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary. But experienced safety trainers say they discourage trying to ace the test without the classes because many of the questions are specific to changes in New Jersey boating law since the mid-1990s.
"You're going to spend $25 (for the test fee) and fail the exam anyway," Baker said. He recalled a conversation with some older boaters who recently completed a class: "They told me, "We could not believe how much we did not know.' "
But Baker said he's noticed one deficiency — not many of his incoming students know about the Coast Guard's recent advances in communications with the Rescue 21 system and the digital selective calling (DSC) capabilites of marine radios.
"I teach a lot of people, and in the last two years not one knew about Rescue 21," even though the system is in place from New York Harbor and all along the Jersey Shore, Baker said.
The Coast Guard's Atlantic City group was one of the first units equipped with the system in late 2005, and Rescue 21 coverage in the Northeast now extends from the east end of Long Island to Virginia and up the Hudson River. Several units in North Carolina waters began using the system last month.
Rescue 21 takes advantage of DSC-capable radios to speed up response to distress calls, and in the slogan of system proponents, "take the search out of search and rescue." That's possible when boaters have a complete package: a DSC marine radio linked to their boat's global positioning system, and the radio registered with its own Maritime Mobile Service Identity number, a nine-digit identifier similar to a telephone number.
In an emergency, pushing the radio's emergency button broadcasts the boat's identity and position automatically to the Coast Guard and any DSC radio-equipped vessel within radio range.
ON THE WEB: Visit www.njsp.org/maritime/index.html for information on New Jersey boating safety certification. Visit www.uscg.mil/hq/cg9/rescue21/default.asp for information on Rescue 21.