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Navigating Waters Safely: The BoatUS Story
Founded in 1966 after a troubling incident on the Chesapeake Bay revealed dangerous gaps in boat manufacturing safety standards, BoatUS has grown into America's premier advocate for recreational boaters. With over 740,000 members nationwide, this organization stands apart by exclusively representing boat owners' interests—not manufacturers or dealers—at both state and federal levels.
At its core, BoatUS operates as a three-pronged powerhouse: advocating for boaters' rights, promoting safety through education, and providing crucial on-water services. The most visible of these services is their network of over 600 red towboats stationed at more than 300 locations nationwide, responding to approximately 113,000 assistance calls annually. For members with towing plans, these services come without the shocking out-of-pocket expenses that can otherwise approach $1,000 per incident.
Membership begins at just $25 annually, providing access to BoatUS Magazine, free MMSI number registration for VHF radios, and valuable discounts at marine businesses nationwide. For boaters seeking greater protection, towing plans range from $109 for freshwater to $175 for saltwater coverage, with specialized options like Unlimited Gold ($215) for dock-to-repair facility transport and Trailer Assist ($15) for roadside coverage specifically designed for boat trailers. Since joining GEICO in 2015, members can now bundle boat insurance with towing endorsements at significantly reduced rates.
The organization's commitment to safety education stands on sobering statistics: where instruction is known, 69% of boating fatalities occur on vessels operated by individuals without formal safety training. To address this, BoatUS offers the only free online boating safety course recognized in 37 states, along with specialized courses like their new SCAN method for improving situational awareness. Whether you're a weekend angler, serious cruiser, or paddle craft enthusiast, BoatUS provides the resources, representation, and peace of mind that make your time on the water safer and more enjoyable. Visit BoatUS.org to access free safety courses or BoatUS.com to explore membership options that fit your boating lifestyle.
you, you, hello, scott Welcome.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me on the show, Mark.
Speaker 1:You're very, very welcome. I mean, we've got a bit of history between us, haven't we?
Speaker 2:Yes, we do.
Speaker 1:There is probably some stuff that we can't share here. Yes, but I was working at BoatUS. You're the VP of Public Affairs, is that right?
Speaker 2:Yes, and we were colleagues. You were an editor at BoatUS Magazine, the biggest circulation recreational boating magazine in the country. Thank you very much for your years of great editorial. You did a lot of how-to kind of stuff and hurricane prep. I still use some of your stuff. Mark, I know you haven't been at BoatUS now for what?
Speaker 1:five years yeah.
Speaker 2:You still exist within these walls.
Speaker 1:Mark know, I know just just out of interest. Just out of interest, because we've got there's a boat us youtube channel, as you know, and I looked at that just to see how those videos I'd done some time ago and a couple of them were up to 750 000 views.
Speaker 2:So not too bad were those the hurricane ones?
Speaker 1:no, there was that and there was sort of repairing gel coat and stuff like that oh yeah, gel coat 101, everybody wants to know, everybody wants to know about that everybody dings their boat yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:well, obviously, as I told you, I'm I'm doing some boat surveys now and um, quite often, you know, you get a boat that's 15, 20 years old maybe, and invariably there's some damage to the joko. So people ask me you know, how do I fix this, or is it going to be expensive? And I kind of usually point them in that direction and say, if you go here, you can see a video of me fixing something, and I just think that that's probably easier than me trying to explain to them longhand. You know how it all works.
Speaker 2:I appreciated those because I you know, that's what BoatUS is known for it's helping people get more out of boating. And those common things that we all need to focus on, you know, from putting in the plug at the launch ramp to gel coat crazing, I mean those are common things that every voter needs to learn, and you made it easy for people to understand.
Speaker 1:Well, you know that's. You know I don't want to blow my own trumpet. That's been my focus. If you will getting people to get the confidence to do stuff and it doesn't even have to be difficult stuff but what you're trying to do is just say to them you can do this. And even if you're not going to do it, scott, by showing somebody the processes involved. When they get a bill from the boatyard and they said, well, you know repairing gel, coat, blood or whatever, whatever it might be, then because they understand the process better, they understand what's involved. So, and because they understand what's involved, they know the amount of time it's likely to take. So, for all those reasons, you know, I think that videos that I've done in the past work on so many different levels.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you made them a smart consumer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So you know we did some good stuff, we did some cheesy stuff, but you know. So, anyway, just steering it back to sort of boat us proper. A minute, what tell me, give me? Uh, you know the elevator speech about boat us. How did it start and and what happened?
Speaker 2:sure well, the full name. People don't often really realize there's a whole name behind boat. The acronym bundefined us. The full name is the boat owners associationers Association of the United States, boatus for short.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And BoatUS got started. When our founder went back out on the Chesapeake Bay in 1966. He was with his buddies and one of his buddies bought a brand new boat and back then the safety landscape when it came to boat construction was sort of like the Wild West. There was no rigid rules about how boats had to be safe. And so what happened is, richard went out with a friend and they were swiftly pulled over by the coast guard.
Speaker 2:It was a brand new boat, it was a friend's brand new boat and, uh, the coast guard unfortunately cited the owner of the vessel for improper engine compartment, ventilation and as a surveyor and a man with your depth of experience in the boating industry, you know engines need air and if they don't get air, critical that an engine has air. Well, back then, in 1966, there was no requirement for a boat builder to do anything having to do with air and many other things for that matter, as it relates specifically to boating safety. So Richard realized that, hey, there was a bunch of people out there that probably needed some representation and probably needed to straighten up the way the Coast Guard and the industry work together to make boats safe.
Speaker 2:And so he started BoatUS in 1966. And on a very meager budget. Richard drove Richard Swartz was our founder's name. He drove very meager cars for years. I see old pictures of him but you know he turned us into the nation's largest services, safety and advocacy group for recreational boaters.
Speaker 2:Those three things are really what we do best. We fight for your rights, we keep you safe and we give you the things you need, the services you need to make your boating successful, confident, a good day on the water, all those kinds of words. So you know, today we're up to I just think we just hit 740, over 740,000 dues paying members all over the country. We have, I tell people, you know we have members all different sizes and shapes, including their boats. We have members with big boats, small boats, members that just want to fish. You know it's really interesting being here 23 years.
Speaker 2:I get that breadth of owners that we have in our membership and it really keeps you, I got to tell you, it keeps you on your toes because I'm always learning something, because I'm just an individual boater myself. I sail and I dabble in power boating, but our members do wide array of things on the water and a wide array of craft. You know they skew a little bit heavier on boat ownership. You know they skew a little bit heavier on boat ownership when I say heavier. The average member has two boats, generally speaking. A lot of members have paddle craft. You know they may have a big boat and a small boat. A lot of our members, you know, the Saturday afternoon if they're not on the boat, something's wrong. Then we have a lot of members that you know I want to take my grandson fishing when he comes this June and they may only go fishing four or five times a season.
Speaker 1:So it really runs the gamut Right.
Speaker 2:So how much?
Speaker 1:is obviously a membership organization. So what are the dues? How much does it cost to join?
Speaker 2:So one of those services is towing. So I'll start out by saying the basic level. Without the on-water towing and the Tow Boat US fleet, we are the largest in the nation, over 600 red tow boats over 300 locations around the country. So if you just want to join Boat US and you get some great membership benefits for the starting rung of basic membership of $25 a year, I have to say, mark, what you used to do for us with Boat US Magazine that to me is one of the biggest values you get for your membership is Boat US Magazine showing you how to dream, how to fix, how to understand and get more out of owning whatever kind of boat you have. There's also benefits at marinas fuel benefits. We have about 1,200 partners. About 300 of them are marinas that give discounts up to $0.10 off a gallon of gas. So if you've got a bigger boat you can probably pay for that $25 membership with one fill-up and a discount.
Speaker 1:Right, I mean, it's been $25 for some time. It must be 10 years or so, hasn't it? It hasn't gone up for a long time, we are very reluctant to increase membership rates.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it's a value, it truly is and, like I say, the magazine, the discounts that you can get, not only at marinas but at chandeliers, bait shops, engine repair shops, it can really. You know it'll pay for the membership hands down. There's some other things you and I were talking earlier about maritime mobile security numbers. You know these, these new radios that aren't so new anymore. They've been out 20 years. But you know some people don't know.
Speaker 2:But you know these radios are function like a telephone and they have a number and it's called an Mmsi number and it identifies you as that radio, that boat. What's critical is it can really save rescuers trying to find you if you have an mmsi enabled, vhf, digital selective calling radio. Yeah, versus those old ones that we all had, exactly, I mean you can tell if they've got mmsi because they've got a little flat with selective calling radio, versus those old ones that we all had, Exactly I mean you can tell if they've got MMSI because they've got a little flat with a distress button and all that sort of stuff on there, right?
Speaker 1:So if anybody's listening, they have that I got to tell you. Just going to say that I was on a boat this morning and I was checking the radio on that and I can't tell you how many times I go on boats and the MMSI number is not programmed, checking the radio on that, and I can't tell you how many times I go on boats and the MMSI number is not programmed into the radio. Oh boy, it's more often than not. And I say to people when I write a survey report, I always say to them there's no MMSI number. You know, you can get one from BoatUS for free. So I kind of plug, I do plug that a little bit, but I say you know, whatever you do, do it. This is the best thing that you can, this is the top safety thing that you can do. So that if even if there's been, I've heard of an instance where a guy couldn't speak, he was having a heart attack and he was able to press the button and he got rescued.
Speaker 2:Otherwise he would have died. Yeah, mark, we have towers every year that are honored for their good Samaritan efforts, and I had a case just like that. You know, these radios take the search out of search and rescue by having this MMSI number that identifies you and connecting the VHF radio to a GPS. A lot of VHF radios now even come with internal GPS. You don't have to do that anymore, right? But we had a five-year-old do the same thing. Her father went off the boat, tried to get the dog that jumped off the boat, got swept away from the current and the five-year-old called rescuers by simply pressing that one button. I'm glad you do that.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you share that I just say to people you know I've got no skin in the game, I just want people to be safe. So I say to them look, you know, here's the thing you can get a number for free from BoatUS. It's dead simple, not much you could do. You program it in and you know you can do it today and you better use it tomorrow if you sort of thing.
Speaker 2:You can, Absolutely. It's part of my used to be part of my pre-departure briefings. I'm between boats right now.
Speaker 1:So I just want to let all your listeners know that.
Speaker 2:So I'm on the hunt like any other real boater. But you know that was one of my first things to do. I, you know, have guests aboard or not. Button.
Speaker 1:Exactly, I do the same thing. I have a pre-departure checklist and all that sort of stuff and I just you know, I don't make a big deal of it, but I say, here's the life jackets, here's the fire extinguishers, and if I collapse in a heat, press this. You know.
Speaker 2:You're a responsible operator. I love it. You know Well, you know.
Speaker 1:But those things are there and, as I said, it just irks me when people don't use the tools that are available to them. They just don't do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So $25 to join? I understand that, so is there any other benefits that we're going to get for our $25?
Speaker 2:Well, you can take a lot of our safety courses Anybody can take those as well. But the hard dollar benefits we spoke about. There's a lot of discounts, mmsi number, voteus magazine. What you also get, which is sometimes hard to understand, is you're getting representation at your state house and at the federal level. Boatus is the only national boating group with full-time paid lobbyists. So things that are going on like right now up in the Northeast the Coast Guard wants to save some money and they want to pull out about 800 Eitan's aids to navigation. We're critically involved with that to slow that process down. Just to make sure we understand cost cutting. We're critically involved with that to slow that process down. Just to make sure you know we understand cost cutting. We understand savings. Everybody wants that, but we just don't want to go too far and maybe lose too much of those eight tons. But even across the board things going on with the federal government right now, with funding levels for critical agencies that provide weather, such as NOAA, boatus is going to bat for the boat owner.
Speaker 2:That's who we represent. We don't represent the boat manufacturer or states or governments. We stick up for the little guy, the guy who owns the boat, who just wants to go out and have a safe, wonderful day on the water and have his access and be left alone to fish, enjoy his guests, have a raft up or go on a week's cruise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean one of the things that we all say if people aren't members and they're listening but they want to join BoatUS, in the magazine we don't do some gear reviews, but we've never done boat reviews because we don't want to be sort of tied into a boat. And I'm sure you've read magazines, like I do every month and every boat's perfect. You know, you read them and you go, oh, this is perfect, this is perfect, I think.
Speaker 2:I think some of my writer writer colleagues will understand the spacious cockpit language yeah, but yeah you know they have a role to play.
Speaker 2:Those magazines have a have a role to play and I understand it. But that's an interesting point you bring out. We we don't do those kinds of things. We do things like fun stuff, like how to make certain cuisine aboard, to gel coat repair, to how to repair your boat or how to get your boat prepared for a hurricane If you're in Florida or the Gulf, to what's going on nationally, what's going on with wake surfing in Idaho, which is now seems to be moving to the forefront across America. You really get informed, you get entertained. And I like the magazine for dreaming, because you know there's that term three foot itis. Every time we buy a boat you want a boat three foot bigger. But you know I want things too, like my first boat I wanted. I never had a GPS. I have. I've always had small boats. You know boat us magazine story gave me the options and informed me the best way. I know how to go about doing it. So that's that's that's what it. But you know you were saying starting level 25 bucks moving up.
Speaker 2:A lot of members have our unlimited towing plans. We are like the triple on the water. We responded to about 113,000 requests for on-water assistance last year from boaters for everything from running out of gas, running aground, engine malfunction. As you know as a good surveyor, number one issue causes problems on the water. So you know we respond to them day or night, 24-7, with professional on-water assistance that's more expensive than the 25. The numbers go to $109 for an annual unlimited freshwater towing plan. So if you're in freshwater we'll come, no matter what time of day or night. You don't have to call your uncle at the picnic on Saturday to come get you. If you break down We'll come get you. And saltwater price is $175. So, again, depending on where your boating is, most of our members actually it's a little heavier on the towing.
Speaker 2:We have a lot of members that are just $25 members and then we have a little over half, I believe, have a towing plan with us because they need that coverage, they want to make sure they got peace of mind when something breaks down, somebody's going to come get them and it's going to make their day get brighter. And our towing plan have one higher rate. So we talked about 25. We talked about the freshwater 109. We talked about saltwater unlimited for 175. But we have this plan called unlimited gold and the big difference with that. Obviously the price is more, it's 215 a year, but the value is greater, so what?
Speaker 1:what's? What do you get for the 215 as opposed to 175?
Speaker 2:here is. I tell people um, it'll tow your boat from uh, from a under, from a unrestricted dock basically your home to a repair facility. It's sort of like akin to AAA coming to your driveway picking up your car. You know you're not broken down on the side of the road. Now You're at home, you're safe and taking your car to the marina or to the repair shop. That's what people use it for. They use it to get repairs done. The first two plans will come get you no matter what. But if you're at home in your home dock, those standalone unlimited towing plans don't provide that, unless you get the gold and I've seen an uptick over the years. You know people just they don't want to worry about anything if they ever have to move the boat, you know, from their home dock or from their boat lift because something broke. They were able to get home, but they're not going anywhere.
Speaker 1:Now that's what that unlimited gold is for yeah, I mean, and the thing is that just the peace of mind that you get from that for your 200 or whatever it is, is well, well worth it. And and the other thing is that correct me if I'm wrong you just didn't mention this, but say I've got the 25 membership. I can still call up towboat us, correct?
Speaker 2:absolutely, absolutely. You'll pay out of pocket. Uh, with an unlimited towing plans, you just show your membership card, um, you'll literally see the bill. You know the average tow right now, just to prepare people, is about a thousand dollars for anybody to come out. Come get you, find you, come get you and bring you back. That's about three hours worth of time. That's how the system works. Towers are paid from the time they leave their home port find you and then bring you back, and then they get home. So it's about three hours and it's a little north of $1,000.
Speaker 2:By the way, people say, well, towboat US isn't everywhere, even if you're the biggest guy in the country. That's correct, but then we'll reimburse you so you're covered either way. And, by the way, our 24-hour dispatch is better than anybody else's in the world. We'll come get you, no matter what. We have other resources beyond our 600 red towboats to come get you. So, like I say guilty, I've been towed. I know what it feels like to wait for the towboat. I know what it feels like to have the towboat show up before the ETA and make a smile come across my face and my wife all of a sudden get much happier that that that we were going to get towed home.
Speaker 2:So you know, I do want to mention most boats in this country are trailerable and people break down on the side of the road. How many times you've seen the trailer?
Speaker 1:yeah, wheel bearings constantly blowing up, yeah, no grief.
Speaker 2:So I tell people know you can add on our trailer assist program for $15. We will tow a broken trailer and its tow vehicle. Let's say you run over a box of roofing nails and all the tires are gone. We'll take all of those and bring them on a flatbed and bring them to a place up to 100 miles. Now we won't pay for a new tire. We won't pay for a new tire. We won't pay for a new axle. But if you want, need a, you have a bad tire and you can tell the dispatcher we will bring you the new tire and put it on. In that case you just pay for the new tire, but the tow gotcha up to 100 miles. So you'll never like. Every time I see that on a highway usually it's on a major East Coast, you know highway you see somebody fumbling with a tire or it's the boat is just left there because they've had to go get something.
Speaker 2:That just you know that, just bothers me.
Speaker 1:I've seen that.
Speaker 2:I've seen that so many times yeah, so you can start with the 25 and if you trailer a lot, get the 15 bucks. You're not going to break the bank there with a $40 annual membership.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't work for BoatUS any longer, but even when I was there, I just thought the roadside towing was the best deal that you could possibly get from BoatUS. Yeah, it is, I think it used to be. I was there five years ago and I think it was $14 at that time and it went up to $15 now. So you know, $1, it's not that bad and it's pretty good.
Speaker 2:You know, I do want to say I want to be forthright, but it's not for day to day. Like you don't get this for your car, no, so it has to be used while towing. That's why we keep it affordable. Um, and you know, a lot of people all have roadside service with their cars and stuff like that, but the ironic part is most of those services won't service a disabled boat trailer.
Speaker 1:you're on your own, so yeah, we've all said, we've all, like you mentioned, we've all seen the sort of boat trailer at the side or propped up on bricks or something, while somebody's taking the tire off to go and get a new tire. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Many years and many times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what I do is I pull up behind them and go on the boats because I think we're stealing. I don't really, I don't really do that you know.
Speaker 2:I tell people, if you're unsure, start with our $25 membership. Learn more about us for a year. See if we can provide some value for you. I'll guarantee you can. I'll say that I'll go out on a limb here. But then think about well, you know, do you maintain your boat? You're good at maintenance? Are you prepared for the unexpected? Even if you do good maintenance, you know? Then get a towing plan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean. One thing I've got to say is we obviously this podcast goes around the world, not just in the US. So you know, we've got listeners in Scandinavia and all that sort of stuff In the UK. We've got quite a lot in the UK. Is there any benefit for other people in other countries to join BoatUS or not?
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, no, our services are US-based. But there's a PR guy that would love to go for a ride in Scandinavia or the UK or any one of those places. His name is Scott Croft at BoatUS. Unfortunately, our services are focused on the US boating scene. Okay, yeah, we do have some towers in British Columbia. We actually have four up there, compared to our competitor who has no coverage on the West Coast. We have 17 ports from San Diego to the island up there, past Vancouver the name slips me and we do offer service to the Bahamas as well. That can be a long run, but having a towboat you know towing plan can get you home if you break down out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean that's you know. You get to West End in the Bahamas or something, and then you've got 80 miles to go across the Gulf Stream and you've got a dodgy engine or something. That's not the place to break down. No no no, no, yeah. So now I understand. A few years ago, boatus became part of GEICO. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Correct yes 2015, we did Yep.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, Is it that long ago?
Speaker 2:It has been Time flies.
Speaker 1:Yes. So I mean, has there been you know? Has there been a lot of changes to BoatUS, or has you know? The other thing I was going to ask is obviously Geico is a big insurance company, so how does that pass across to BoatUS?
Speaker 2:It has certainly changed, but I think a lot of those changes are really more the way we look at processes and try to be smarter as business people and running the association processes and try to be smarter as business people and running the association. But to the member and to the insurance customer I think things have actually gotten better because now we're getting low priced and valuable Geico marine insurance policies. So you can buy a Geico marine insurance policy for your boat and what people do is called bundling. People may have heard that. So if you have your business with Geico, you can simply add your boat and your boat now is insured by Geico Marine Insurance. You can actually get towing now as an endorsement.
Speaker 2:So those towing programs, those limited towing plans, those towing plans we call them standalone and they're good for any boat owned, rented or borrowed. So if you want to let your son go, take the boat out, or a friend take the boat out or whatever, you're good, You're still covered. But if you have an insurance, marine insurance policy with GEICO, the best part is the price goes way down. Now it only provides towing service for that covered boat because it's an insurance policy for that boat. But if all you have is one boat and you don't really have a bunch of friends where you borrow boats or you're going other places with different boats. A lot of our members have decided to add the endorsement because it basically halves the rate. It depends on where you are, but you can get a towing endorsement, I think, for as little as about $44 for your vessel, so it just makes drops.
Speaker 2:But you get all the same stuff. You get a membership with BoatUS. You get the 24-hour dispatch, all those membership benefits, the MMSI number for free BoatUS magazine. So I've seen, since GEICO has in 2015, we've aligned ourselves with GEICO I've seen a lot of members shift to that endorsement because they save money. It's just, it's a better deal for them.
Speaker 1:Sure. Now the other thing I want to ask you about is you know, when you have a hurricane, if it's a named storm, geico Insurance will pay half of the money to haul the boat? Is that correct? I don't know. You can explain it better than I can.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you know when hurricanes come here, we don't want your boat damaged as much as you don't want your boat damaged. So how do you make the decision the potentially costly decision to haul your boat if you can get it out in time. So we have hurricane haulout coverage that pays up to $1,000. We split the bill for the haulout to get you ashore because you know we've been doing hurricane catastrophe recovery since Richard Swartz. You know I mentioned earlier our original founder. We've been going on catastrophes for 40 something almost 50 years now, and what we've consistently found is getting your boat out of the water, getting your boat out of the boat lift, getting your boat out of harm's way. The chances that you will have minimal damage potentially no damage go significantly up if you have the time to get it out. A lot of people don't have the time to get it out. So that's you know. Going back to your tenure here, you used to focus a lot on your videos about how to tell people what to do when a storm's coming in.
Speaker 2:And we have all that information, mark all your videos, hurricane guides all this is for free at boatuscom slash hurricanes. You do not need to be a member. We want to. We want every boater to not have a painful day, because once your boat gets damaged in a hurricane, we often know that that could be the end of the season, could be the end of the boat but you know.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I know, but you and I have both been to seen the aftermath of hurricanes and stuff.
Speaker 1:I remember we both went down to Florida some years ago and what I find particularly annoying is and it's more than annoying to the boat owner. But you can have a boat owner does everything right, you know, he tapes up all the hatches, he doubles the lines, he does everything that he's supposed to do, and then the guy next to him does nothing and then that boat comes over the dock and it smashes the boat where the guy's done everything.
Speaker 2:You're spot on. I try to stress people Hurricane Prep is a community event. What you just explained to me was what I call the bowling ball effect. Everybody does the good and there's one guy whose boat breaks loose because he hasn't or she hasn't done anything, and it bounces around the marina and damages many other boats. So how to prepare a marina with, excuse me, how to prepare a canal with all the property owners, and how to spiderweb lines, how to do those things, like you did with your grand banks, about sealing the doors, making sure to keep the water off the boat.
Speaker 2:We found in this last hurricane. There's so many of the names, just go through my head. But the last hurricane season we had a lot of losses with boats in boat lifts and that was because, going back to my original, you didn't get the boat out of the water for whatever reason. Maybe you don't live there. There's a lot of properties in Florida. People are part-time owners there but what we found is the flood came up, the hurricane flood came up, the swell jiggled the boat around in the lift and then, when the surge left, that boat was now cockeyed and often the boat tilted off its bunks and went right stern down into the muck, submerged. And you as a you know, as a surveyor, you know that's a very expensive proposition it doesn't even have to be that complicated.
Speaker 1:I've actually seen, you know, center consoles where people have taken the bung out the back of the boat to drain the water out, and then they forget about it and then the water comes right up fills up the boat with water, you know. And then we used to say that you know.
Speaker 2:It's funny you mentioned that you know because we used to say well, if you think the surge is going to be this, so much, leave the plug out, because you don't want that water weight collapsing the lift. But then what happens if the surge goes a little higher? Now that now water's coming in yeah you're damned if you do, damned if you don't get the boat out of the lift yes get it ashore yeah, yeah, good, good advice there, that's good advice.
Speaker 1:so, uh, apart from you know, looking after the, the boat and everything, if, if, uh, what should you do from a personal point of view to keep yourself safe and I'm not just necessarily talking about hurricanes, I'm talking about boating in general. What's the top five list of things that people should do?
Speaker 2:Well, if you want to look at the data the Coast Guard and this is very telling data very few people are killed in accidents when the operator of the vessel has had boating safety instruction. The stat is where instruction is known. 69% of the deaths occurred on boats where the operator did not receive boating safety instruction. Just think of that.
Speaker 2:So, taking a boating safety course, you're automatically the odds are in your favor that the catastrophic thing isn't going to go that way. So I tell people the best thing you can do, even for old timers, even for people who've been boating for 20 years take a boating safety course. Take a course that you'll go to, whether it's a power squadron or Coast Guard auxiliary. If you don't have the time for those, take our online boating safety course. We have a free course. It is the only free online boating safety course. Right now, 30 states 37 states recognize it to satisfy the legal requirement. Right now, people from California and New York our numbers are skyrocketing because both of those for course taking, because both of those states enacted mandatory boating safety education and since I've been at BoatUS over two decades, that's been the trend Most states are now making everybody take it. They may have a phase-in period, which is a pretty smart thing to do, but I'm in New York Everybody in New York this year, starting January 1, needed a boating safety course. And the Boat US Foundation for Boating Safety and Clean Water, which is our 501c3 nonprofit it's our sister and they get most of their funding from Boat US members who donate, as well as some grant funds. You can take that course. You can start and stop at any time. It fits in busy schedules. I can think of any excuse you give me why you can't take that course. I can knock the excuse right off the deck because it's a very valid course that teaches you how to everything you need to know.
Speaker 2:I'm like one of the hair club for men president people. I didn't take the course for years and then I did, and you know what? It boosted my confidence. That's what it really did. It made me a safer boater because I could handle my vessel responsibly understanding navigation, understanding rules of the road, courtesy simple things like courtesy which is not legislated, it just comes from the heart and the head which is not legislated, it just comes from the heart and the head. That course. We've had 2.3 million people take it over the last 2.3 years and, like I say, you do not need to be a member to take it. We offer a slew of other courses, some of them paid, some of them free. Learn how to navigate, learn how to go through locks uh, all these things about navigation, just focused on navigation. They're all at voteusorg. Check them out.
Speaker 1:Check them out yeah, and of course we were talking about. You know people in other countries, so it doesn't matter where you are in the world.
Speaker 2:You can still, you still look at that, so yeah, the next course, I think especially for everybody in the world. We just started this new course, we just launched it called Scan and it comes from the need of another Coast Guard statistic which says operator inattention, improper lookout, operator inexperience, machinery failure and navigation rules are the top five primary contributing factors to incidents. I think that's universal. I don't think that's any different in the UK than it is in the US. So we decided to focus on those first two because you know how many times now have you been driving in your car down the road you see somebody who's not paying attention? They're on their phone. Same stuff's going out on the water it's a little.
Speaker 2:It's a little scarier. There's no lanes on the water, there's no way I actually.
Speaker 1:I actually got called in by an insurance long story, but yeah. But I got called in by an insurance company up in poughkeepsie actually not which is not a million miles from me. Yeah, right near me yeah and and uh what happened? We had to recreate this accident. And it was a big trawler, and then it was a bow rider a high-powered bow rider.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and sadly two people died on the bow rider because they were doing 40 knots and they T-boned the trawler and one of the girls went over the top, but another one went through the windshield and was killed.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1:So it was very, very sad. But you know, the thing was that the guy that was operating the boat we think he'd been drinking, which is never a good thing, never. But not only that, you know he was trying to say that the boat was defective because it crashed into this other boat. Well, no, it wasn't. You weren't keeping a lookout and you were using too much speed.
Speaker 2:So I took this course and what's great about it is it's 30 minutes, it's online, so you can take it from anywhere, and it really focuses on improving situational awareness. What you were just speaking to, and you know, scan set stands it's an acronym we've developed search, concentrate, analyze, navigate and it's and once I took this course and then went out on my sailboat, it all came together because that's what we're doing always at the helm. We're scanning right. We're not driving in a car in lanes on the highway looking for an exit. We can go anywhere. We don't want to go bad places where there's a shoal, we don't want to run across somebody's path on a course. So then it teaches you to concentrate. Now that you've seen everything, what's the most important thing to concentrate on, analyze it, what you're going to do with it, and then navigate away from it. And it's really cool because you're sitting at that there at the helm and it sort of puts this little process into your head. He's coming this way, he's coming this way, he's behind me, he's not my concern at all right now and you're constantly updating that in your brain and it really makes you a confident voter behind the helm, especially on busy waterways where there's a lot of traffic and it really focuses people to get away.
Speaker 2:I was going to say get away from their cell phone. But let's be honest. There's navigation apps. People are using their cell phone all the time to navigate and everybody has a suite of electronics. These days, like when I grew up, nobody had a GPS. Now you got, you know you may have two or three displays in front of you. It really gets you out of that and onto the water, knowing where you are and knowing where your situation, where you are aware of where you are and, hey, anybody can come take it.
Speaker 1:It's at boatusorg as well, totally free it sounds to me like if anybody's listening to this and they've got an interest in safety or any of the topics that we've talked about, they really ought to just go there and then just cruise through the website, right, and then they can get all this information together.
Speaker 2:Boatusorg is the BoatUS Foundation website. Boatuscom is the BoatUS Association website. So they're a little different because they're a 501c3 nonprofit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, but I think that there is. Correct me if I'm wrong, scott, but there's some links on the BoatUScom website to the boatusorg website.
Speaker 2:Yes, is that right Once you get there.
Speaker 1:yes, Exactly, and welcome to Boat Talk Radio, your station for all things boating. Now, if you're a boater living in the United States, there's a fair chance that you've come across BoatUS at some time. Boatus has a lot going on behind the scenes, a membership organisation. You might just think that it's just for listeners in the US, but you'd be wrong. There's plenty of resources on their website with downloadable guides and articles and articles from boat buying to maintenance and everything in between. In addition, there's a helpful YouTube channel where you can find all manner of tips and tricks to up your enjoyment level. You might even see yours truly tackling some DIY projects. No-transcript, no-transcript. And also to you, our listener, for tuning in. We'll see you next time.