According to Megan Sheahan, an economic and statistical analyst, data suggest that American Boat and Yacht Council’s (ABYC) voluntary standards (for marine safety) reduce the risk of involvement in a focused accident by 43 to 47 per cent. Focused, in this context, means the type of accidents the standards are designed to address.

The insight came at USCG’s Risk Mitigation latest event. Sheahan reported that the data sources used to make this conclusion included the US Coast Guard’s (USCG) Boating Accident Report Database (BARD) – described as a clean, historical record of recreational boating accidents in the United States – and a list of boats built to the ABYC’s voluntary standards, by builder and model year.

Sheahan’s results also suggest that ABYC’s standards reduce the likelihood of a fatality during a focused accident by 26 to 58 per cent. In other words, not only are these accident types less frequent, but the likelihood of a fatality on those boats during accidents that do occur also is reduced.

“This important research confirms what many have believed anecdotally, which is recreational boats that are built to voluntary standards are less likely to be in certain accidents than those built to the coast guard’s minimum standards,” says Jeff Ludwig, chief of the Recreational Boating Product Assurance Branch at USCG.

“In many cases voluntary standards exceed the coast guard’s requirements, and this extra effort by some manufacturers should be noted by consumers.”

“Earlier assessments revealed that boats in compliance with ABYC standards are seven times less likely to be recalled by the USCG for safety issues and we’ve always known the critical importance of ABYC standards in ensuring safe, reliable and enjoyable boating,” says ABYC president John Adey. “We are proud to share this independent, data-driven research that supports our efforts.”

ABYC standards stem from safety data. Statistics like BARD’s enable insights into new technology and help to support global harmonisation. And as USCG points out, data helps build best practices and lead to newly developed or revised standards, improving the boating experience.

Data used for safety standards

According to Tammy Terry from the Ohio Department of National Resources, Division of Parks and Watercraft, there are a few key data fields that are collected by all of the US states and submitted to BARD. This makes up the majority of the data used in analyses. These include the basic ‘what’ of the incident (date, time, location, weather, water, waves, brief description); the ‘who’ (people, towing, lifejackets, operator experience, persons descended/injured/disappeared, property damage, vessel: size, hull material, engine type, safety measures, activities at time of incident); the how/why (the chain of events); and the ‘what’ (the investigator’s determination of the most important contributing factor through to the least). It is these reports which form the basis of standards developments, but she says while the USCG receives information on mostly fatalities and hospitalisations, other minor incidents are vastly under-reported.

Susan Weber, statistician for USCG, manages the national data collection of recreational boating accident data from state agencies to produce the USCG recreational boating accident report, says the data is being used for multiple purposes including standards and regulatory development as well as publication education/outreach.

Weber is keen to point out that while it is USCG’s responsibility to review data and produce statistics (in 2022 USCG counted 4,040 incidents that involved 636 deaths, 2,222 injuries and approximately $63 million dollars of damage), it’s the public’s responsibility to report an incident – and those include death, disappearance, injuries that require medical treatment beyond first aid, damages that equal or exceed $2,000 and complete loss of vessel. She says any incident is reportable if it could be prevented through regulation or boating safety education.

Once the data is collated ABYC uses an ANSI (American National Standards Institute) accredited process to develop consensus based safety standards for boats and components, says Craig Scholten & Brian Goodwin. “Product testing, data and review by experts maintains a suite of standards that support evolving needs and technologies in the marine industry. These standards provide industry a ‘state of the art’ performance approach for designing, manufacturing and boating safety internationally.”

Risk mitigation series by USCG

The USCG/ABYC risk mitigation series is a recurring online event with past webinars including: ‘Regulations and electrification’, ‘Put the fire out’, ‘Defect notification and product recalls’, ‘Staying current with electrification’, and ‘Navigating compliance in an age of evolving technology’.

ABYC says standards are at its core, as they are continuously researched, developed, and revised by over 400 volunteer marine professionals. Its Standards and Technical Information Reports for small craft cover all the major boat systems and the development, and annual review of these standards correlates directly to the significant reduction in the number of boating accidents over the past six decades. Today, 90 per cent of boats on the water in the US are built to ABYC standards, the organisation claims, and over 3,000 technicians are trained and certified by ABYC so that boats are maintained with the highest level of technical expertise.

Main image is taken from a story in 2023, when a giant wave flipped over a stolen boat during a US Coast Guard rescue.

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