They say all good stories start with poor decisions. Boaters seem to have plenty—usually the kind that raise the hair on your neck or send a shiver down your spine. Some are shared with a laugh and a shake of the head: tales of questionable choices witnessed from a safe distance. Others come off as unwitting confessions—hard lessons learned firsthand, told without much humility or irony. The difference between those two kinds of storytellers? A wide gulf of training and experience.
A certain strain of overconfidence shows up at the boat ramp or dock bar—usually from folks new to the water (or who grew up managing a fleet of tub toys) who bristle at the idea that boating has any sort of implicit learning curve. They wave off formal instruction with a shrug and genuinely seem to believe it’s second nature to back a 42-foot sportfish into a tight slip across the current—they passed driver’s ed in ’85. The boat has a wheel and shifter like a car, so they figure, “I’ve got this.”
That mindset isn’t just unhelpful. It’s genuinely dangerous. We’re all out here together, and the smart among us try to stay as far from these latter storytellers as possible!
Instruction First, Helm Second
If you’re new to boating—or even if you’ve been around it but never formally trained—your first stop should be a NASBLA-approved boating safety course. These can be completed in an afternoon either in person or online. These courses are required by an increasing number of states for anyone operating powered vessels, and for good reason. Rest assured, if your state doesn’t require it, someday it likely will. Your experience at the helm won’t legally carry you if you take your boating skills across state lines to places that require a certificate of completion. Take the course—oh, and send a copy of the certificate to your insurance agent for a nice financial reward for being a smart boater.
The U.S. Coast Guard’s 2023 recreational boating statistics report over 3,844 accidents, more than 564 deaths, and $63 million in property damage. A staggering 75% of those who died had received no boating instruction. That’s not hyperbole or opinion—it’s hard data. Educated boaters are safer, and cost everyone less—less at the tax office and the insurance office. Your ego doesn’t hold water with either.
A safety course covers fundamentals like a mariner’s obligations when encountering other vessels—often mistakenly referred to at the dock bar as “right of way”—as well as lighting and sound signals, the IALA buoyage system, and the legal minimums for safety equipment. Think of it as the boating equivalent of driver’s ed—a way to learn the rules before you’re tested by real conditions (or the game warden when he suspects your throwable is missing or your judgment’s impaired by something more potent than Coppertone).
Unlike the driver’s ed handbook you might have skimmed in high school, the Navigation Rules and Regulations Handbook—required to be carried aboard recreational vessels over 12 meters (39.4 feet)—is a much thicker and more demanding read. It combines the COLREGS (International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea) and Inland Navigation Rules; while it might not be anyone’s idea of light reading, it’s foundational knowledge for safe seamanship.
Books Don’t Make Mariners
While safety instruction is essential, no one becomes a safe, capable mariner from a coursework alone. Seamanship develops on the water—handling a boat in tight quarters, reading wind and current, learning how vessels respond to varying conditions. These are skills forged through time and repetition. Under the guidance of an experienced mentor, they take root faster and run deeper.
A service like BoatingLessons.com fills this gap. It’s a growing directory that connects savvy boaters with licensed captains in their area for private, on-the-water instruction. Whether you’ve just bought your first center console or you’re stepping up to a sportfish or trawler with serious mass (we’re talking many tens of thousands of pounds), this is the kind of hands-on experience that fast-tracks confidence and safety.
This kind of practical experience does not replace the legal requirement to complete a NASBLA-approved safety course—nor should it. In states like Virginia, even Coast Guard-certified mariners aren’t explicitly exempt from completing that course to operate recreationally, though in practice the law is often interpreted leniently for those carrying professional credentials. Legal requirements aside, there is simply no substitute for time on the water. There’s a reason professional captains have to log hundreds of hours—in addition to extensive course work—before they can be credentialed. Book smarts and helm time aren’t interchangeable—they’re complementary. Boating Lessons’ tagline says it well: “Learn from captains, not mistakes.”
The Goal Is Seamanship, Not Just Compliance
Ask a group of seasoned boaters about the worst thing they’ve ever seen on the water, and you’ll get stories: near misses, collisions, anchors dragging, vessels plowing through no-wake zones or docking at ramming speed. These anecdotes stick because they remind us how quickly small lapses in skill or judgment can escalate.
When you’re in that moment—navigating a narrow channel with current underfoot, wind astern, and traffic ahead—you want your responses to be second nature. On-the-water training gives you that kind of confidence. You’ll just know and react. You won’t pause to wonder why that tug is honking five times at you or second-guess who’s maneuvering and who’s standing on. That is seamanship.
That level of confidence isn’t arrogance—it’s competence—and it earns respect on the water.
You Can’t Fake Time Afloat
Good boaters don’t need to tell you how much experience they have. You can see it in how they throttle down before their wake hits others, how they approach the dock, and how they handle their lines. It’s a quiet combination of competence and confidence without bravado or anything to prove. They also know when the day’s work is done—when the lines are tied, the engine’s off, and everyone’s ashore safely—then the skipper might crack a cold one. Anything sooner is just begging to become someone else’s story.
If you’re new to boating, the good news is that kind of competence is within easy reach. The path is straightforward: take the course, read the handbook, use advanced navigation tools like Argo, and spend quality time learning your boat with a qualified mariner/teacher aboard. Form good habits early and you’ll avoid the kind of mistakes that turn into stories for someone else to tell—with your boat in the lead role.
In the end, everyone starts somewhere. What matters is how seriously you take the journey from beginning boater to mariner. Do it right, and you’ll have stories worth telling without that “sinking feeling”—and none of them will start with, “So there I was, backing into the fuel dock like—really—backing INTO the fuel dock….”
