Virginia Requires A Boating License For Boats and Jet Skis

Last summer I was at a friend’s lake-home enjoying the boats and jet skis when he asked if I had a boating license, so that I could drive.  I didn’t even know there was such a thing.  Since I’m under 50 years old, I apparently needed a boating license.  The law went into affect that in a progressive manner, depending on age, all watercraft drivers would need a license.

According to the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries website a law went into affect in July of 2012 requiring drivers of watercraft that are under 50 (as of 2014) to have a driver’s license.

As of July 1, 2012, all PWC operators age 14 and older and motorboat operators 30 and younger must complete a boating safety course. This is the next phase-in of the Education Compliance Requirement for all Virginia boaters. Beginning July 1, 2013, all motorboat operators ages 40 and younger need to take a boating safety course.

PWC Age Restriction: No person under the age of 14 may operate a PWC. Those operators 14 and 15 MUST show proof of completing an approved and accepted boating safety course either in a classroom or online. The challenge exam or other provisions of the Education Compliance Requirement do not meet the requirements of the age restriction law.

Since I love my summer activities and I’m leaning toward acquiring a boat of my own, I went in search of licensing class.  There were a few options for Saturday classroom sessions, none were exactly close-by where I lived, but all were free.  I’m not one to have a lot of Saturday’s to give to sitting in a classroom.  I decided to check out online classes.  Since I couldn’t find a great resource for getting information about the classes, I thought I’d share my experience with three services.

The law requires 6 hours of actual learning and the online programs are timed to ensure you stay active for the entire six hours.  I looked at three websites, completed the first session of each and then decided to complete the program with BoaterExam.com.

Best Online Option – BoaterExam.com

BoaterExam.com isn’t free, it’s $30, but it’s worth it.  First, I’m a Mac user, so the fact that it works on Safari was important to me.  Second, BoaterExam was easy to sign-up for, had a current website and easy to follow videos and program information.  Each session has a video to lead off which is very easy to follow and the session allows you to forward if you’ve completed watching the video and reading the materials.  You’ll still need 6 hours of interaction.  Some of the other online classes would make you stay on the page until the time ran out, even if there was minimal information on each session.  Additionally, the site works well on my iPad, which is important since I’m on travel so much.

I found the reviews at the end of each chapter to be very helpful and the tests made a lot of sense.  They were practical and easy to read.

I also looked at Boat-ed.com which was just “ok”.  The interface was not nearly as user friendly, clean and current as Boaterexam.com.  It was also $30 to complete the program. The quizzes, videos and information was not very well produced.  I had problems running the site on my iPad.

Lastly, the site that I started off this adventure with was a site called BoatUs.org.  The first session was so bad, that I almost abandoned the thought of an online class.  The class is free, but the materials are congested, poorly written and very hard to follow.  The quizzes seemed designed to be particularly difficult and, unlike the other two programs, they seemed to be a lot of information that no one will really need.  The sessions weren’t very practical.  This site didn’t work on anything other than Internet Explorer and Firefox and desperately needed a user-interface expert to advice them on how to improve the learner experience.