Sure they can always find a reason, but it has to be legit, otherwise sooner or later they'll pull over the wrong boat and the state will get caught up in serious litigation.
As I understand it, the intent of the law was to NOT give MP the authority to pull folks over to check for boating certificates, but if the boater is stopped for a violation of rules then MP should check for the certificate.
Seems to me it was a safeguard included by lawmakers to prevent random checks.
Now if they were checking boats at anchor that may have been violating a no rafting rule, that's fine. To pull over a boat that is underway and check for the certificate goes beyond the scope of the law as I understand it.
I'd be interested to see, of the boats pulled over that were underway, were any tickets handed out for violations other than lack of boating certificates?
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