Looked like she was running good to me.
Had the vest on.
Don't know about the lanyard, but I'm guessing yes.
The water was wide open, no traffic.
I see no problem. Is it because she is a girl??
We've applauded some of the members of this board when they show pictures of their young sons running the boat.

I was running my Dad's boat at age 10, albeit not a Hi-performance.
It'd still do 45, and was a 24' boat so it wasn't a little boat.
I was always supervised, and usually just ran at a cruise speed.
By the time I was 11, the next season I was running the boat completely by myself - with supervision. What I mean is, my Dad would hand me the keys, I'd run the blower, start the boat, he'd help me with the lines, he'd sit down, and let me drive the whole day and even pull it back into the dock myself.
I think he always got a kick out of it when we saw someone on our dock that couldn't get there boat into the slip to save there life, and he had to run over and help - and then they'd see me pull the thing in like I was parking a car - at age 11.

Good for her, she's learning the right way young, and gaining that much needed experience of years that we all wish so many people on the water would have acquired before they decided to go to a boat show one January Sat. and saw that they could afford a 35' Fountain on the payment plan.

Alright buzzkill............... My reasoning is simple. Its a free country and he can do what ever the hell he wants to do, which includes letting his daughter drive the boat. I'm sorry if your parents weren't as cool, but clearly he is not the only one who does this with his kids.

If we all follow your reasoning we'd be living in a kevlar box so that we don't ever get hurt or feel unsafe by what someone else is doing.

Need I dare challange you to live on the wild side every once in a while.........:D

I'll take it on the chin:- my initial reaction to seeing the vid was perhaps a little over the top. Some very good points on here - I guess that's what forums are all about. And I agree totally with he who inferred that essentially someone like her under close supervision is better company than some ass hole who's had way too many to drink and wants to prove to the world how big he is in the trouser department. Point taken.

My first adult occupation was finding pilots and crew that were down in forests, mountains and oceans and bringing them back, sometimes while people were shooting at me. (as well as the occasional stupid civilian) I had to give it up after getting knocked out of a helo and spending most of a year in a hospital. I've started five successful businesses from scratch, each time risking everything I owned. I've raced (and crashed) raceboats, racebikes and racecars. All more than once. These days, for fun, I teach cops how to stay alive in CQB when they're out-numbered or overpowered. Overall, I've been hurt more times than most humans have had paper cuts.

Not only am I incredibly well-familiar with risk, I've seen way more than my share.

There's a big difference between risk and "Hey! Watch this!" The former is a well-evaluated plan of action that considers all the variables in an analytical process. The latter is action with little if any consideration for the potential outcome, usually brought about by the thought of the pleasure the action will yield while discounting or ignoring the potential downside. Both are dangerous, the latter is unncessarily so.

Believe me, I've certainly done my share of things that could easily have been categorized as "Hey! Watch this!" Maybe that's how I can tell the difference between the smart one's and the dumb one's.

I'm not as worried about the kid steering the boat with dad as I am about some of the other things I saw. That vest was a joke. If she got tossed, I doubt it would have stayed on. The bigger issue is charging that hard towards that bridge opening- it was coming up fast. She was going to either have to make a fairly brisk turn or the plan was to buzz under the bridge and blindly into whatever was on the other side.

BTW, that hull is a 3-step bottom. Is that something an 11-year-old girl should be turning at speed?

hey chris were you a PJ?

yeah- late 70's to mid 80's

I saw you spent some time in AF blue too.

yes, i was a weapons guy,f-4e,f-4d,f-16 block tens,4 years reg,6 years air guard, 1980-1990.just came in contact with a guy i knew in the phillipines,1984,pretty cool,i was enlisted but i root for the AIR FORCE FALCONS!3-0.

My younger brother was AMMO, '81 to '88. Somehow he got the most desireable duty stations- without even trying. Straight out of school, he got Aviano, then a couple years at Myrtle Beach. 2 years at University of Dayton to finish his degree- still on AF payroll with his school 100% paid, then finished up at Nellis. I spent almost a year TDY at Aviano while he was there so that was kind of cool. He worked almost exclusively with the A-10, doing alot of work at the end on the testing and deployment the AIM-9.

i was pretty lucky,denver(school)nellis,kunsan rok was remote but we got to go to the phillipines twice 35 days each time,then homestead,the a-10 could take a nasty bite out of your head with 11 hard points for munitions.