Powerboats - with our without licence?

B

binaryfinary

Active Member
I'll make it brief -

Hired a boat from the excellent Star Boats in San An last year. At times it felt like it would have been quicker to row, but I was on the understanding that a 15hp outboard is as high as you can go without a licence, or chartering a boat with a captain, the latter of which makes it horse-chokingly expensive.

Yet when I told someone this winter about this, and the price we paid, he looked at me like I'd just said "yeah, I'm investing all my money into Venezuelan bolívar, I can't see that tanking any further!"

This doesn't sound right though? Surely the rules on power-output before you need a licence are constant, and as we know, nothing is cheap in Ibiza.

I assume someone knows more on this, so my questions are simple -

1. What can you hire before you need a licence?
2. If I do get a licence, which I'm willing to in the UK before I go late-season, what will I need? RYA Level 1? Level 2? CENVI? I'm an experienced and competent user of powerboats but I'll be honest, I've never been licenced and don't know all the lingo.
3. Where is best/cheapest to get a good boat. I don't mean a 40ft Sunseeker, I just mean something that wont capsize if the wind gets above 5 knots.
 
The UK/European laws on boating seem to be vague/complicated at best, lots of confusion of countries that have/have partially adopted Article 40.. however the problem is that no boat rental company will offer a powerboat to someone who doesn't have proof that they have completed formalised training to some sort of international standard, hence the need for the ICC.

What I take from that it's in your own best interests to obtain your International Certificate of Competence as part of, say, Coastal Powerboat Handling level 2, as a minimum - I believe this covers you up to a 10m vessel. Also, try contacting a few hire companies in Ibiza and ask them what kind of 'license' they require.
 
I thought I was having Deja Vu for a minute, I know I answered a similar question a while back ;-)

I'd definitely do the licence in the UK as it's much cheaper, after that you can apply for an ICC International licence (which is similar to an international driving licence), but the RYA one will be accepted in most places I think, certainly we had no trouble renting a boat with it last time in Ibiza. I don't see much point in doing the Level I unless you're really tight on funds or something, you can go straight to the Level II without any prior knowledge (as we did).

Maybe it's in the other thread somewhere, but I cannot remember the name of the place we rented a boat from but we did it on line and it turned out to be one of the huts down where the Twister goes from, I have to say, they were excellent! We went across to Formentera for the day then back, had a spin round the harbour in Ibiza town and then back to San An.

Tim.
 
Yeah, I do remember a thread, but couldn't find it. Been using various forums for nearly 20 years now, and search functions famously don't work!

Excellent advice though - I had no idea that you can do level 2 without doing level 1 first. Good advice on the ICC licence too.

What companies do people recommend for hiring from? Just so I can get an idea on prices? I've found no-where as cheap as Star Boats that offers anything more powerful and/or that doesn't require a skipper. Most also charge extra for fuel - a surprising, and nice, bonus for Star Boats was the fuel was included. I don't imagine it's cheap either.
 
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binaryfinary said:
What companies do people recommend for hiring from? Just so I can get an idea on prices? I've found no-where as cheap as Star Boats that offers anything more powerful and/or that doesn't require a skipper. Most also charge extra for fuel - a surprising, and nice, bonus for Star Boats was the fuel was included. I don't imagine it's cheap either.
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I'd recommend the place we used if I could only remember the name of it, but as I say, it's in one of those huts by the Twister and the parascending ones in San An. The prices were, to quote myself:

The boat cost 380€ for the whole day (10 until just after sunset) and it worked like a rental car, so you get it full and return it full. We did about 80km, I think, and used 67 litres of fuel (97€)!!
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That's about twice the price of Star Boats, but you can't really compare, as I said above, we went all the way to Formentera and then back to Ibiza Town, did a tour of the harbour and then went back to San An for the sunset - which is of course far further than you can go with a Star boat.

Having a licence also allows you to rent some pretty serious jetskis too!
 
Deco - Excellent advice, thanks for the information!

TimmiT - Yep, I remember the thread now, and thanks for digging it up, I see it's back on the first page of this forum!

That cost puts us way over budget. We looked at that place ourselves.
 
Yeah we were thinking of that actually. There's just two of us as last time, so would certainly help with the cost. Issue is, you're stuck with those people for the whole day. While I'm sure most Spotlighters are lovely people, what do you do if you attract a nutter! Haha.

I'm looking at a few other options anyway, so will post closer to the time if we do decide to look for people to share with. Not going until mid-September.
 
Deco33 said:
Doing the course on inland waterways might cover you to cruise coastal waters abroad but i'm not certain on that. But whatever areas you take your course will be mentioned on your ICC when you apply for it.
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No it doesn't. You need to do your RYA Level 2 in coastal waters in UK for that to transfer to the ICC. If you get your coastal then inland is covered also as long as your assessor makes that clear but not vv. You need to view the course and ICC as an investment in your future. It's a couple of days out and £200 or so. Once you've done it then you have a passport opening up the doors to renting anything up to 10m without a skipper. You'll save the cost in just 2 rental days because a skipper is usually about 100 Euros a day.

You can see the categorization on an ICC off mine here

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This is all excellent advice. I was going to do it on a lake near where I live, but obviously that is out if I want the Coastal version.

Fortunately I live near the coast, and I assume there's somewhere near Liverpool that offers Coastal courses.
 
It says 2 days minimum duration on there but I did mine in 1 very long day on a 1:1 course in Southampton after taking to them. It's up to your instructors to get the material and practical covered and of course you need to be able to pick up a buoy with the wind trying to throw you off, and handle a bigger boat round a very tight marina without too much drama. All stuff you actually need to know to make sure you get your deposit back but if that's already second nature to you then 2 days is a very relaxed pace for the course.

As far as priority of passage on the water is concerned that's just for the piece of paper - driving on the water in Ibiza is no better than on land :lol::lol::lol: and I've never seen anyone actually consistently wearing a kill cord :rolleyes:.
 
binaryfinary said:
Yup, seems that Liverpool Sailing Club are doing a course on the weekend of July 14th/15th. £120 - not bad.

Kimajy - Good info there. And yeah, I imagine the waters off Ibiza are a bit of a minefield at times. Had to be very careful last time in the little boat, with bloody big powerboats flying around.
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Dirt cheap - Northern prices :lol:. Yeah once you get your licence you can get out there and scare the living sh*t out of all the star boats with the best of them :twisted::lol::lol::lol::lol:
 
Ahh, I realise I didn't read the small print properly - to do the course you also have to join the sailing club, which is £155. Still, not too bad.

Herbie - Would f***ing love to pilot one of those beauties. I actually say to people that if I won the lottery, I'd be dead in a year. Either a helicopter crash or a Class 1 powerboat crash. Fortunately I'm poor as f***!
 
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It was a great boat to work on. I helped shape and spray that one. I was working in Australia for 2 years building 60 to 80 ft yaughts for maritimo. One day the owner of maritimo come in and said he wanted a class 1 powerboat built for his son to race. I was lucky enough to get picked to work on it. You would never get me in one though
 
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