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As far as paying customers, we know we can't do that. I was surprised at
Jon's comment about buying a bunch of the Questor boats and renting them to
tourists. Not sure if that would fly. My guess is that definitely wouldn't be
able to get insurance, but who knows. It seems to me that an "experimental" boat
could be considered in the same way an experimental plane. Think I heard
somewhere that if you built your own plane you didn't need a pilot's license to
fly it. This was in connection to those little planes with the propeller behind
the fuselage. Not an ultralight but still pretty small. They are pretty nice
little planes and go like hell. Several years ago a guy near here had one and I
would see him buzzing around. Looked like lots of fun. I never got the chance to
talk to him though.
Anyway, as it relates to subs, if you design and build your own, and have
the minimum requirements for any boat like life preservers, flares, CF numbers
or reg. #'s for your area, there shouldn't really be any
special restrictions on where you can go. This of course is always going to
be at the discretion of who's in charge, be it the harbor master, park ranger,
coast guard, or sheriff.
Now back to paying customers........the main thing here is probably
insurance. Even if you get a signed release form, the law is pretty clear here.
It seems the law was more intended for ferries or something and subs may
have been added as an after thought. I wonder if there's any restriction on
using it ( the builder ) for things like hiring yourself and the sub out for
inspections, retrievals, filming, or other "commercial" ventures without taking
paying customers along.
Probably take a lawyer to figure that one out. Me....I'm gonna go chase
KRAKEN and get some pictures.
Frank D.
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