Power Boat License
OMG it's ridiculous
When we last posted we were awaiting a survey on what will hopefully be our new vessel ‘Sophia’. In the mean time we have been investigating the license required to drive the boat in Europe.
In Australia, and particularly Victoria you do a Marine license course. It takes about half a day and you don’t even touch a boat. At the end you can drive any power vessel or sailing vessel with very minor limitations such as not commercially or chartering. Which after doing the proper online theory course (see below) feels like quite a dangerous system.
In Europe (and in fact most of the world) the license required is called an ICC (International Certificate of Competence) and there are quite a few different categories. Our vessel falls in the over 10m power boat category (which is for vessels between 10m and 24m I believe). This serves as evidence of competence in foreign countries, and is also required by insurers.
In Australia to get an ICC accreditation you need to do both the theory and practical components at an accredited RYA (Royal Yachting Association) training center. Sounds simple enough, except, there is nowhere in Australia that provides a practical for power boats over 10m. I don’t mean, nowhere close to me, I mean nowhere in the entirety of Australia.
The theory is online, and I worked my way through it with Navathome Australia with success on the Day Skipper course. It is pretty in depth and takes about 40 hours to do it properly. It includes a good understanding of tidal heights, tidal streams and their affect on vessels, safe anchoring, safety, understanding beacons, buoys and lights, navigation with electronics, and navigation via paper charts. Nataliya is working her way through it at the moment (and if I even glance over what she is doing and offer any help I get daggers sent my way…so I shan’t be doing that any longer).
I had to then contact the RYA in the UK (as Australia is still part of the Commonwealth, and we haven’t signed up to the ICC accreditation scheme, the RYA of the UK is the body that overseas any training). After a few days I got a response that I could do a practical test at the Auckland Sailing School. After the initial….they do realise that New Zealand is a completely separate country to Australia and the flight there is about 3.5 hours (the equivalent of flying from London to Athens), I set about contacting Phil from the sailing school.
The next hurdle to overcome was the availability of a vessel. The sailing school didn’t have any power boats over 10m to use, so we had to rent one for a day. Prices in NZ are ridiculous for short term rentals, about 50% more than here in Australia. In the end we paid about $1600AUD ($1120USD) for a single day use of a suitable vessel. Noting that the vessel is pretty old, has a bow thruster but no stern, and is a single inboard engine, 36ft/11m in length. It will just be me (Will) doing the practical license. The aim is for Nataliya to do her practical in the UK in our own vessel at a later date.
With that booked in for the 12th of February, flights booked and Phil booked I just need to ensure that I pass. I did have a smaller power boat for a couple of years about 15 years ago, and have chartered some larger power boats for a few days here and there in the last 3 years, however things such as manouvering into tight berths, anchoring to anchor buoys and MOB (man overboard) scenarios are not something I have done much of!
Back to the petting zoo this week, school holidays ended and we have cut our days down to Friday-Sunday. We have managed to organise caretakers who will work with us through April, and run the zoo while we are on our travels from April 20.
In the mean time there are more certifications required. VHF Radio and CEVNI (European inland canals and waterways) which will need to be completed before we submit the licence application to the RYA UK for ICC - so all the necessary boxes should be checked for us to drive our vessel in Europe and the UK.
Being only February, we still feel we have enough time to iron out any kinks in our plans as they arise. We have our fingers crossed the boat survey comes back without any major issues.