|
CONTACT
ME
Printer
Friendly Page
|
Why are small boats required to have flotation, and why are
there different requirements.?
Back in the 50's and 60's the old
Boating Industry Association (now NMMA) and the Yacht Safety Bureau (now
ABYC) realized that one of the main reasons people died in boat accidents
was the boat sank out from under them. Sounds obvious but it wasn't
really. Then in the 1970's a lot of research was done into
hypothermia, and the two came together. It was realized that if the boat
did not sink, it would give the people something to hang onto, that could
be seen much better than just a head sticking out of the water, and if the
boat, although full of water, did not sink, or roll over, then the people
could actually stay in the boat. Most of their torso would be out of the
water reducing the effects of hypothermia, and providing a much better
rescue platform.
So work started on developing a standard for
flotation. Through testing and experiments techniques were developed
that would provide enough flotation to keep a small boat afloat, and
floating relatively level. However, this did not work well for inboard
boats, because the size and weight of the engines required far too much
flotation material to float the boat level.
Meanwhile the Federal
Boat Safety Act passed in 1971 and went into effect in 1972. The Coast
Guard began collecting statistical data on boating accidents.
Analysis of this data revealed that the most significant contributors to
fatalities were capsize, sinking and falls overboard. Flotation in a boat
could eliminate the sinking, prevent capsizing, and prevent some of the
falls overboard. Many of the "falls overboard" were actually the
boat rolling over and dumping everyone in the drink. Also analysis
revealed that by far the majority of these accidents occurred in
monohulled boats under 20 feet in length, manually propelled or with
outboard power. The inboards contributed some.
So between NMMA,
ABYC, and the Coast Guard it was
determined that monohull boats under 20 feet with outboard power or
manually propelled should have level flotation, and inboard boats basic
flotation. Basic flotation simply keeps the boat afloat with some of
the boat sticking out of the water.
When the
regulation was proposed many people in the classic and wooden boat
community felt that the standard was too rigid to be applicable to small
manually propelled boats or boats with tiny engines. So after
testing and consultation with persons building these types of
boats the standard was modified to allow some latitude in achieving
the same performance. That is, these boats have to float level to
the same degree as larger boats with bigger outboards, but the method of
achieving it is different. It was called modified level
flotation. Additionally this small boats areallowed to carry a
grater percentage of theri weight capcity as persons, than larger boats
are. This seemed to satisfy everyone.
This particular standard has
been a rousing success in preventing deaths. It is not clear and
probably not quantifiable just how many deaths have been prevented but the
fatalities have dropped dramatically since 1972, from about 19 per 100,000
boat, or about 1300 people, to less than 6 per 100,000 boats, about
600, annually in 2005. At the same time the boating population has
grown to roughly 5 times what is was then. The drop in fatalities is a
combined result of education, engineering and enforcement, so it is hard
to say which has contibuted more, but certainly flotation standards have
had an effect.
Back to Flotation Page
1
|
