Motorboating Merit Badge

The swimmer test blocks one requirement, not the badge

This is the unusual thing about Motorboating, and it is easy to miss because every other water badge on this site behaves the other way.

Requirement 2(a) says to pass the Scouting America swimmer test before doing requirement 5. One requirement. Named, and nothing else with it.

Compare Canoeing, Kayaking and Small-Boat Sailing, where the same test stands in front of every requirement except the first, including the dry ones about naming parts and storing gear. Here, requirements 1, 3 and 4 are twelve lettered parts of hazards, engines, fuel, law, signals and anchoring, and none of them waits on the swim test.

So the practical order is the reverse of the paddle badges: there is a great deal of work available immediately, and the test only matters when you want the boat.

The thing with a lead time is hiding in requirement 4(b)

Requirement 4(b) asks you to explain the boating rules or laws where you are, to discuss how you would find another state's, and, in the middle of that, to have a permit to operate a motorboat, if the laws of your state require one.

In states that require it, that is a course and a certificate, not a conversation. It is the only requirement on this badge whose existence depends on where you live, it is the only one with a real lead time, and it is written as the third clause of a lettered sub-requirement about rules.

Find out early whether your state requires one. This site does not keep a list of which do. That is law and it changes, so check it where it is published.

Requirement 5 is the boat day

Eight parts, with your counselor or another adult aboard: boarding and life jackets, fuelling and a safety check, the engine cut-off link and getting underway, a course of at least a mile covering overtaking, right of way, oncoming traffic, turns, reversing and navigation aids, anchoring on open water and recovering the anchor, landing, mooring and securing, and five knots.

That is one substantial session on the water, and it is the only requirement the swimmer test blocks.

What this page is

The Motorboating merit badge, drawn so the narrow gate and the buried permit are both visible. It is not a copy of the requirements: each step is a short label with a link to the official requirements, which are what actually governs and which change from year to year.