National Safe Boating Week is May 22-28 and, as we prepare for the 2021 Hurricane season, let’s hope that caution and good seamanship will prevail among the increasing number of boats on the water. See FWC: Safe Boating Week.

National Safe Boating Week,  May 22nd to the 28th. It serves as a reminder to boaters that once they leave the dock or ramp, there’s no guarantee that everything will go smoothly to ensure a safe return.

Despite the pandemic — or perhaps because of it — skyrocketing boat sales have seen a significant increase in the number of people taking to the water, many for the first time. Knowingly or unknowingly, those who ventured onto our Florida waterways are faced with a grim reality: more accidents, more injuries, more fatalities.

Think these figures would be down? According to the just-released Statistical Report by the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Department (FWC), the number of reportable accidents in 2020, the latest figures available, was higher than in any year in the past five years. Not only that, it was proportionately higher when factoring in the increase in the number of registered vessels.

Nationwide, some of the leading calamities resulting in fatal boating accidents occur from falls overboard, collision with a fixed object and swamping. A must safety reminder is to wear a life jacket. Another is to not drink excessively while operating a vessel. But one essential reminder not often touted is to pay attention. Inattention is far and away the leading contributor to boating accidents.

A lack of boating education and knowledge is another major contributor to the increasingly grim statistics. Introductory boating safety courses are offered by state, non-profit agencies and commercial enterprises. But there’s another option from an organization which has specialized in safe boating education for more than 100 years.

United States Power Squadrons (USPS), commonly known as America’s Boating Club, is quite possibly the only national organization to offer such a wide variety of safety and skills-advanced courses nationwide at reasonable prices. Free to the boating public are such programs as “Vessel Safety Check” and online “America’s Boating Channel” described in more detail at www.usps.org.