Have you ever gone fishing or for a sightseeing tour on a charter boat or maybe for a half-day lighthouse cruise?

Before paying the captain and loading your kids aboard, consider how you know it is safe. The captain is smiling and helping you aboard, but is the boat in compliance with all safety regulations? How do you know this isn’t just some guy who got a deal on a leaky bucket and is taking people out to pay for it? You can’t very well step aboard and start doing a full examination of all his equipment.

Luckily you can verify that a trained examiner has done that for you if you see a USCG UPV decal or a Certificate of Inspection decal displayed prominently. That green and white or red and white USCG decal indicates that a specially trained and experienced Coast Guard examiner has gone over all the required items and found them to be in accordance with the regulations.

What, exactly, are the regulations? What does the captain have to have to carry passengers for hire? To use a boat to receive income from the passengers, the vessel must be a commercial vessel. It can be either an Uninspected Passenger Vessel (UPV) or an Inspected Vessel, not a recreational vessel.

For the complete list of what is required for a UPV, go to the UPV Website www.D1UPV.org, but for now let’s look at some of what they need. First the captain must hold a USCG Captain’s license for which he has taken a Coast Guard exam and has certified sea time and a health examination. That license must be aboard the vessel and the captain must produce it upon request.

A Rhode Island State boating card is not a USCG license. That just allows you to operate a recreational vessel in state waters, not carry paying passengers. Besides the USCG License, for a UPV, the captain needs a host of items including an emergency check off sheet posted, type 1 PFDs with water lights and reflective tape, up-to-date charts, light list and local notice to mariners aboard, to list a few, and he must be enrolled in a random drug testing program.

What is the difference between a recreational boat, an Uninspected Passenger Vessel (UPV) and a USCG Inspected Vessel? A boat you buy to take family and friends fishing or cruising is a recreational vessel. It cannot be used for business purposes (you cannot derive income from the use of the vessel). You do not need a Coast Guard captain’s license to operate it, and the requirements are minimal safety standards.

You can receive a Vessel Safety Exam (VSC) from a USCG Auxiliary or USPS certified examiner. You are prohibited from requiring anyone to pay you for taking them. If you want to carry passengers for hire (receive income) you must meet the additional requirements for a UPV or an inspected vessel.

A UPV or inspected passenger vessel is a boat which has more stringent requirements and it must be operated by a USCG licensed captain. A charter boat, is a UPV and is allowed to carry 6 or fewer passengers. An inspected vessel is one which has additional requirements. These would be larger vessels like head boats, ferries, crew boats etc., that are allowed to carry more than 6 passengers. They receive a Certificate Of Inspection (COI) from the USCG. So if you are required to pay to go aboard a boat, look for the USCG UPV or COI decal. If you do not see one, does it mean the boat is unsafe? Not necessarily, but the decal is awarded to any boat which meets all the legal requirements for that specific passenger vessel. For charter boats, the UPV examination is free and can be scheduled anytime. It has been available for five years locally. If the captain has not had a UPV exam in all this time, one wonders why. The RI Party and Charter Boat Association requires all its members to have a current UPV examination on all their vessels. Let’s keep boating safe!