Who should operate the boat: Kids or parents?
 

Browsing through the Internet, I found this question at http://www.boatcop.com/. (But don't go there unless you want to suffer a record number of pop-ups).

(The answer appears to depend upon the state in which the practice appears).

Based on what I've seen here, New Hampshire's answer would be "yes".

Anything explicit in the law on this?

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It seems to me that if a child is not old enough to operate a boat under the current NH law then they can not operate the boat regardless of the parent being snockered.

With all the threads regarding carelessness of boaters & not knowing the boating regulations, a child operating a boat could be very dangerous & inviting serious trouble. The parents must be more responsible & not put their child in that difficult situation to begin with. Would you want children operating cars if the operator was snockered?

16 and safe boater cert and there should be no reason for it to be an issue just like they could pick you up at a bar with the drivers license. Considering under 16 requires supervision I doubt a plastered parent would be acceptable as supervision but not sure if they could actually get you for BWI.

They might not get the snockered parent for BWI, but certainly they could charge him/her with Child Endangerment, and perhaps Reckless Operation, too bad they just can't charge them with gross stupidity.... LOL!


Woodsy

When we lived in Bossier City LA, we had a good friend who was a cop. He always said that there is one law needed to be on the books in every jurisdiction: Aggravated Ignorance--- He said there were violations every single day, and the city could have been tax free if he could have written the tickets. Now what a way for the Marine Patrol to fund their operation...;)