Boating license, it’s chaos: Italian Naval League cut off

A bureaucratic mess invests candidates for the new boating license members of the Italian Naval League. The new requirement for admission to the exam is to certify at a nautical school five hands-on hours in a boat, but the Italian Naval League is not understood by the capitancies to be a licensed nautical school. LNI candidates who have been preparing over the past few months find themselves unable to register for the upcoming exam sessions–which are still being taken with the old quizzes anyway, due to delays.

Boating license, LNI cannot certify outings at sea

We have already talked about the news related to the new boating license, in this article. MIMS Decree 10/08/2021 states that, “A candidate who has performed at least five total hours of maneuvering …. on boats or recreational vessels used for professional instruction, attested by a nautical school, shall be admitted to the examination.” Too bad that by not mentioning explicitly, the CINs, Nautical Education Centers of the Italian Naval League, these were suddenly left out.

EXAM CANDIDATES FORCED TO POSTPONE SESSION

The Harbour Master’s Offices, today do not recognize the Naval League CINs as qualified to certify the 5 hours of practice, and refuse to enroll candidates who have been preparing in recent months at the LNI. The CINs of the Naval League, at the moment, not knowing how to do this, were forced to postpone all candidates in full to the next session.

FORGETFULNESS OR INTERPRETIVE ERROR?

The presidency of the Naval League is taking action these days to see if a circular from the ministry, can clarify that CINs are equivalent to nautical school, that in the intention of the legislature, the 5 certified hours are intended to be a prerequisite for only candidates who are applying as private students.

THE PARADOX OF EXPERT SAILORS

Paradoxical that CINs cannot certify the hours of their candidates, and that it is from those very CINs that the “expert sailor” instructors that Nautical schools must have on staff in order to run courses come from. CINs are then currently required to have an appropriate unit for the type of license that is owned for exclusive use by the boating school.

THE NEW BOATING LICENSE QUIZZES ARE NOT YET READY

Adding to this mess are the famous new quizzes on the new topics for taking the boating license, but after so many announcements we find out that the exam is still being taken today with the old questions because the new quizzes are not yet ready.

Hoping that the situation for LNI member candidates will be unblocked soon…. we will keep you updated.

Luigi Gallerani

EDIT – In the article we mentioned that the quizzes were still being held with the old questions, but today at 3 p.m. Confindustria Nautica announced that ‘MIMS Director General of Maritime Transport, Teresa Di Matteo, signed the decree containing the single national list of theory quizzes and charting exercises of the new boating license exam. They will come into effect 60 days after publication in the Official Gazette, and until then the current regulations will be applied‘.

Technically, then, we will still have to wait two months, but then, on the quiz question, the matter is concluded. An important step and to halt the decline of new ‘licensees’, halved in the last 20 years, also discouraged by notional and mnemonic questions with no relevance to ‘practice’.

About the contents of the new quizzes, which will finally have no parts related to merchant shipping, neither will be discussed in a new article.

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