What Licenses Are Required For Jet Skis and Wave Runners

Most large yachts carry 'personal water-craft' (jet skis and wave riders) and many captains and managers are very concerned about their safety and the legal consequences of an accident. All maritime administrations in the Mediterranean require operators to have a certificate. Strangely, in the United Kingdom this is not the legal requirement (although local bye-laws now often insist on rider certification and insurance companies will no longer insure unqualified riders). This has led some managers and crew to assume that they do not therefore need to worry about training for Personal Water Craft operators since many yachts carry a British flag. In cautioning you against such a view I would draw your attention to two issues.



1. National Requirements for Licenses

It is not at all clear that a Jet Ski can be considered as a 'tender' to a large British yacht and therefore exempt from the need for qualifications. A 'tender' is a ship’s boat that works between the mother ship and the shore taking personnel and stores; it is not a recreational craft. It is not even clear in UK law at the moment if a jet ski can even be considered as a 'vessel' in terms of maritime law. In our view, if a Coastal state’s laws require PWC drivers to have a permit then a yacht is in contravention of those laws if they allow unqualified people (crew or charter guests) to drive them. We believe that this also applies to normal boats, such as RIBs and Wave Runners, when used for recreational purposes.

2. Duty of Care


The European Union Directive on 'Duty of Care' has been enacted in the laws of all EU member states. This places a very strict obligation upon the managers of all organisations to ensure that all work is carried out in as safe a manner as possible. Accidents, injuries and fatalities caused by a failure in this duty of care can have very serious civil and criminal consequences. The UK may not require licenses to operate small boats but the official governing body for recreational boating in the UK, the Royal Yachting Association (RYA), has created very clear and exacting standards for the operation of recreational boats and for personal watercraft in particular. The RYA has even gone to the effort of creating operating rules specifically for the use of PWCs from large yachts. For yachts to ignore such clearly expressed and targeted guidance would surely be regarded as reckless by a court of law in the aftermath of an accident.

THE SOLUTION.

At Blue Water several of our instructors have been accredited as 'Trainers' by the RYA. This is the highest rank of powerboat instructor and allows us not only to train crew for basic and advanced power boat and PWC licenses but also to train other instructors. This means that you can have your own instructors on board your yacht. They will be able to legally certify charter guests to operate PWCs. The yacht will have to be inspected to make sure that it complies with all of the safety standards to be an RYA school but this can be arranged easily with locally-based inspectors. Jet Ski instructor courses are run regularly and can be done on board the yacht or in our classrooms in Antibes, Palma and Fort Lauderdale.