@eyeamom:
Yep, there are all kinds of things in the water people don’t realize. I heard a coast guard rescue years ago in NY Harbor, guy in a motorboat was taking on water, he had been traveling along full tilt at night, and hit a submerged piling, there are a ton of these old wood pilings that break off, and end up waterlogged and are a foot or so below the surface.
One of the problems with boats is that in most places, there are no requirements for owning one, you don’t need to take any kind of training class, in many places you aren’t required to carry insurance, you can simply turn the key and go (talking in the ocean, some places do have training/licensing requirements on inland waterways, like lakes and rivers). In waterways like LI Sound, there aren’t that many marine enforcement units, and a lot of people drink while boating, and that is a disaster, too, because the impact of alcohol on someone is much, much worse on the water. I am not in favor of driving licenses for boats because that just becomes another bureaucracy (and fee), but there should be requirements that people have to show proof they passed basic boating courses at least and have that on them should they ever get pulled over. When I had a boat, I saw a lot of drunken buffoons in high speed boats who likely had a lot more money than brains, and it could be pretty scary.