COAST GUARDA boater under arrest for boating under the influence submits to a breath test. Licensing boaters would allow authorities to get chronic offenders off the water.

The state Marine Police enforce the licensing law in two ways–by setting up on-the-water checkpoints, and by requiring boaters to show their licenses when accidents occur. If a boater's record contains drunk-driving convictions, officials say they go for maximum penalties, citing the boater for whatever violations they can find, such as having an inadequate number of life-jackets on board.

Alabama maintains a points system, as most states do for driving violations, that determines what fines and other punishments will be levied. If a boater racks up three violations during a 12-month period, revocation of the boating license is mandatory.

ANTI-LICENSE SENTIMENT

Despite Alabama's satisfaction with the new system, the scheme hasn't yet persuaded other states to adopt boater-licensing laws.

One large factor is that BoatUS, the nation's largest boating organization and the industry's most powerful lobbying group, opposes boater licensing. BoatUS, like the National Rifle Association and other membership-based lobbies, has built a reputation among its members for vigorously defending boaters from what it perceives as added hassles or costs.

While the group says it strongly supports mandatory boating education for boaters, and is comfortable with requiring boaters to carry some form of identification while they're out on the water, it opposes issuing separate ID cards, which it contends would amount to hassling boaters.

"The licensing approach is not going to control what somebody does on the waterways," says Nancy S. Michelman, BoatUS's new president. "It's the educational part of the equation that's important. Licensing would be yet another step, another process and sometimes an additional cost to people getting out on the water. It's not going to affect safety."

Last month, Boat US conducted a survey of its membership. Of those who responded, 69 percent said they favored mandatory boater education, and 75 percent said they would have no objection if they were asked to produce a driver's license. The survey also asked its members whether they would "favor boat operator licensing." BoatUS won't release the results on that question.

Michelman argues that the idea that licensing is needed because boating has become more dangerous "is not substantiated by the numbers." She cites Coast Guard figures showing that the rate of recreational boating fatalities per 100,000 boats has plunged by 75 percent since 1971, while the actual number of deaths has declined by 58 percent.

Even so, the distinctions on the licensing issue are narrowing. BoatUS says it agrees that boaters should have to pass a boating safety course and carry identification, but opposes licensing if it involves issuing separate cards.

AN ISSUE OF SEMATICS?

Where you stand on issuing separate licenses depends upon where you sit. Alabama's Lieutenant Shipman said the main complaint her department receives from boaters is that "some people don't like the fact that we stamp the boating operator's endorsement on their driver's license. They'd rather have a separate card for boating."

At this point, the differences between BoatUS's position and the Alabama model appear partly a matter of semantics–that is, do you actually call the license a license, or simply a certificate showing that a boater has taken a mandatory boating safety course?

Nevertheless, the odds are slim that big changes will come unless there are some dramatic accidents to spur the nation–and the boating community–into action. That's what it took in Alabama, Capt. Huffaker said. But it is harder to push a system of change through for the nation as a whole.

Admiral Allen acknowledged the political mood when he proffered his proposal last June, telling a group of state legislators: "What I'm trying to do is to kind of stick my toe in the water and see if I get bit by a piranha."

And he did. Some 300 federal, state and boating industry officials at a national small vessel security summit that the Department of Homeland convened June 19 and 20 concluded that requiring boaters to obtain licenses was impractical. Instead, they recommended that boaters be required to carry other photo-I.D. cards, much as they do when they fly on an airline. But that may prove to be just a shot across the bow.