Page 6: of Marine News Magazine (June 2013)

The U.S. Coast Guard last month released its 2012 Recreational Boating Statistics , revealing that boating fatali- ties for that year totaled 651, the lowest number on record. Commercial mariners and operators may wonder what that has to do with their world, but in truth, the numbers are signiÞ cant because (a.) the causes of these accidents have direct correlation to what happens in the workboat wheelhouse, and (b.) the vast majority of domestic workboats operate in close proximity to the playground waters of AmericaÕs 12 million+ recreational boats. How safe those boaters can become directly affects those workboats operating around them. From 2011 to 2012, deaths, injuries and accidents attributable to recreational boating all decreased signiÞ cantly. Over a wider timeframe, the numbers are even more signiÞ cant. That recreational boaters are getting safer is not the big story; what makes those improving metrics even more signiÞ cant is the explosive growth of recreational vessels on the water (not withstanding a very small dip in the past two years) over the past Þ ve decades, as shown below: Compared to 2011 Ð and despite the number of recreational boats on domestic waters remaining fairly static Ð accidents decreased 1.6%, deaths decreased 14.1% and the number of injuries decreased 2.6%. Predictably, the report states that alcohol use was the leading contributing factor in fatal boating accidents, but curiously ranked only 7th on the list of top 10 known primary contributing factors of accidents. Hence, while there were other more signiÞ cant issues involved with accidents, no one factor was more deadly. Operator inattention, operator inexperience, improper lookout, machinery failure and excessive speed ranked as the top Þ ve primary contribut- ing factors in accidents (rules of the road errors were right up there, too). Almost 71 percent of all fatal boating accident victims drowned; remarkably, 84 percent of those victims were reported as not wearing a life jacket. That sounds like a simple lesson; in and of itself. Only 14 percent of deaths occurred on vessels where the operator had received boating safety instruction, further underscoring the need for boating skills education. Maybe there is something to that STCW thing, after all. The most common types of vessels involved in reported accidents were open motorboats, personal watercraft and cabin motorboats. Looking at the demographics of where accidents happen and framing that against the sheer numbers of boats registered in those states, it isnÕt hard to see why the following 8 states rank so high in all categories. But, the numbers do not always bear out the accident rates. Take Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin, for example, which rank 2nd, 3rd and 5th respectively in total boat registrations but also rank much lower on the total ac- cident, injury and fatality rankings. Are boaters in these Great Lakes states better trained? Or, just more careful? Waterborne Vessels 19601997201020112012 Number of Recreational Boats 2,450,48411,877,93812,438,92612,173,93512,101,939 Accidents: Recreation Boats Not Avail.8,0474,6044,5884,515 Injuries (recreational)9294,5553,1533,0813,000 DeathsNot Avail.821672758651 RankAccident Type (#)Type of Boat (#)Cause of Death (#) Contributing Factors (#) 1Collision (1,010)Open motorboat (1,842)Drowning (459) Operator Inattention (581) 2Flooding / Swamping (509)Per sonal Watercraft (779)Trauma (103)Inexperience (417) 3Allision (475)Cabin motorboat (324)Cardiac Arrest (29)Improper Lookout (391) 4Grounding (422)Canoe/Kayak (236)Hypothermia (11)Machinery Failure (346) 5Skier Mishap (387)Pontoon (158)Carbon Monoxide (2)Excessive Speed (310) Total 4,515 - - - -651 4,515 BY THE NUMBERSU.S. Coast Guard?s 2012 Recreational Boating Statistics The Deadly Top 5?s in 2012 (source: U.S. Coast Guard) 6 MNJune 2013MN June2013 Layout 1-17.indd 6MN June2013 Layout 1-17.indd 65/30/2013 11:03:47 AM5/30/2013 11:03:47 AM