As used in this chapter, unless the context clearly requires a different meaning:\n'Motorboat' means any vessel propelled by machinery whether or not the machinery is the principal source of propulsion.\n'No wake' means operation of a motorboat at the slowest possible speed required to maintain steerage and headway.\n'Operate' means to navigate or otherwise control the movement of a motorboat or a vessel.\n'Owner' means a person, other than a lien holder, having the property in or title to a motorboat. The term includes a person entitled to the use or possession of a motorboat subject to an interest in another person, reserved or created by agreement and securing payment of performance of an obligation, but the term excludes a lessee under a lease not intended as security.\n'Personal watercraft' means a motorboat less than sixteen feet in length which uses an inboard motor powering a jet pump, as its primary motive power and which is designed to be operated by a person sitting, standing, or kneeling on, rather than in the conventional manner of sitting or standing inside, the vessel.\n'Vessel' means every description of watercraft, other than a seaplane on the water, used or tanding, or kneeling on, rather than in the conventional manner of sitting or standing inside, the vessel.\n'Vessel' means every description of watercraft, other than a seaplane on the water, used or capable of being used as a means of transportation on water.\n'Waters of the Commonwealth' means any public waters within the territorial limits of the Commonwealth, the adjacent marginal sea and the high seas when navigated as a part of a journey or ride to or from the Virginia shore.\nCode 1960, c. 500, § 62-174.2; 1962, c. 626; 1968, c. 659, § 62.1-167; 1972, c. 412; 1987, c. 488; 1998, cc. 84, 443, 512, 514, 515, 533, 537, 563.
Virginia Legal Code