Boat Safety 101 – Make Your Boat Super Safe

Boat safety 101—When trying to understand how to ensure your boat’s safety, there are seven suggested areas to cover. These components will enable you to create a genuinely safe boating environment.

Boat Safety Top Considerations – 7 Areas

1. Legality

Research the boating rules and regulations where you will be boating or sailing. The Federal/State/Country rules and regs will list the required safety equipment, licenses, certificates, etc. Failure to become compliant will result in heavy fines, and you can potentially have your boat impounded. When it comes to boat safety 101 you always want to start with the law!

2. Inventory & Service Record

Make an inventory of all your safety equipment. List the item type, amount, location, and last/next service date (if required). For example, ten adult life jackets are under the navigation desk seat. The last service date is Oct 22/Next Oct 23. On Britican, we have just over 25 safety equipment items listed on a table, helping us quickly identify where items are, how many we have, and when we need to service them.

To get our list, request a copy of our FREE Boat Safety Audit here.

3. Safety Equipment Boat Safety 101 User Knowledge

It’s one thing to have safety equipment and another to know how to use it. Do you have a liferaft but don’t know how to deploy it, or what do you need to do once it’s deployed? It’s imperative to know how every piece of safety equipment you have works and whether or not it needs routine servicing. An EPIRB with a dead battery isn’t going to help you if you’re lost floating at sea! Make sure to have all the safety equipment instructions.

4. Safety Procedures

For every standard boat safety 101 issue, it’s imperative to have a solid procedure to handle it. Common boat safety issues to consider are man overboard, grounding, collision, fire, taking on water, engine failure, rig failure, abandoning ship, etc. Note that these things rarely happen, but they do happen, so having a procedure will enable you to know what to do if/when required.

5. Safety Policies

These are ‘my boat, my rules.’ We have policies about when and when not to wear shoes. Another policy is lifejackets – we have quite a few rules about when and when not to wear them. Policies help you lay the safety rules down so everyone knows what they can and cannot do. Some come from rules and regulations, and others we make up ourselves. Make sure you have a set of policy documents. Keep your policies with your inventory, service record, and user instructions and procedures.

6. Boat Safety 101 Checklists

Before passages, you’ll want to complete routine engine checks, below-deck safety checks, and above-deck safety checks. When you have new guests on board, you’ll want to bring them through a safety briefing explaining how to fit the lifejacket when required, what to do in an emergency, and so forth. Several well-constructed safety checklists will help you keep your safety equipment in shape. Additionally, checklists can help you inform new guests of your safety systems and help everyone find issues before they become disasters. If you need boat safety checklists, check out my Boat Safety Checklist guide.

7. Your Boat Safety Manual (unique to your boat)

Construct a manual holding the safety inventory, equipment user instructions, procedures, policies, and safety checklists so that all passengers can quickly locate and understand how and when to use the safety equipment.

Your boat safety 101 manual can be a resource on how to find the necessary equipment, use it, and follow the procedure required to handle all common boat challenges.

FREE Boat Safety Audit

When avoiding boat safety 101 mistakes, the most important thing you can do is define boat safety, make sure you understand how all your equipment/safety systems work, and create an inventory of all your kit.

This do-it-yourself audit lists all the common boat safety equipment and enables you to check what you have/don’t have. It also recommends servicing items that require maintenance and lists potential procedures and policies that you might want to take on board your boat. Get access here: Boat Safety Audit.

Other Boating Safety 101 Articles/Videos

Always wear a life jacket and be safe on the water with these other resources:

• 7 Boat Safety Mistakes and How to Correct Them
• Sailing Basics – Avoiding Collisions
• The Importance of Using a Sailing Safety Tether
• The Best Life Jacket for Sailing Cruisers

Boat Safety 101 Common Question

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