Small Efforts Make Big Difference in Recreational Boating Safety
There are over 11 million registered boats in the United States. Most boating experiences are positive – the stuff memories are made of. But the most joyful times quickly can turn deadly if boaters are not vigilant about safety – at all times.
One of three things usually happens when a good day on the water turns tragic, according to the U.S. Coast Guard:
- A passenger falls overboard
- A boat capsizes
- A boat collides with another boat or object
In 2017, the U.S. Coast Guard counted 4,291 boating incidents that involved 658 deaths, 2,629 injuries and about $46 million of damage to property.
Perils of Falling in Frigid Water
Hypothermia can set in if a person is exposed to water less than 70 degrees for too long. The body cools 25 times faster in cold water than in cold air, according to the Personal Flotation Device Manufacturers Association. In June 2015, a Utah doctor, his two daughters and one of their friends died in the frigid waters of Bear Lake, about 120 miles north of Salt Lake City, after their boat capsized. Lance Capener reportedly swam to shore with his wife, Kathryn, only to perish when he went back for the girls. Two other teenage girls survived by massaging cramps out of each other's arms and legs and praying while waiting for help to arrive. All were wearing life jackets, but their body temperatures plummeted in the 53-degree water and 70-mph winds.
Just Wear It
Life jackets are the lifeblood of safe boating. The U.S. Coast Guard reports 76% of boating deaths in 2017 were due to drowning, and 84.5% of the victims were not wearing a life jacket. The good news is, comfortable – and stylish – Coast Guard-approved life jackets are widely available. The Wear It campaign promotes boating safety by encouraging boaters to wear life jackets all the time. Before setting sail, review a pre-departure checklist to ensure you have everything you need in your boat, including a tool box and first-aid kit. Once on the water, use common sense. In a split second, a situation can arise or the weather can turn. If you notice storm clouds, a sudden temperature drop or wind speed increasing, the best advice is to play it safe. Get off the water.
Get Educated, Reduce Risks
The National Safe Boating Council promotes safer recreational boating through education, outreach and training. In 2017, Coast Guard data indicates 81% of deaths occurred on boats where the operator had no boating safety instruction. By comparison, 14% of deaths occurred where the operator had received a nationally approved boating safety education certificate. To further reduce risk, the Coast Guard offers these tips:
- Don't drink: Alcohol affects judgment, vision, balance and coordination
- Take a safety course
- Get a free vessel safety check; contact a local volunteer here
- Know about carbon monoxide; this odorless, colorless poisonous gas is emitted by all combustion engines and onboard motor generators
The extra effort that goes into taking these kinds of precautions will help create fun-filled adventures for you and your family on the water.
For all your accessories and/or vinyl flooring visit Pontoon Depot's shop site.
- Amy Cabanas
- Tags: Boating Boating Safety Family pontoon boat Pontoon Boat Operating safe boating habits summer
Family-Owned & Operated Self Creek Lodge & Marina...
Pic By: Southern Fishing Boats
...on Lake Greeson is proud of its heritage of offering the most dedicated staff at one of the finest of Arkansas lake resorts. If you’re looking for a vacation in Arkansas, our Lodge & Resort is your answer.
Everything is in place for Self Creek Lodge and Marina to offer our guests a wonderful family vacation in Arkansas at Lake Greeson. We offer year-round events and activities to make your lakeside vacation memorable, fun, and carefree. Our marinastore offers over 2,400 square feet of display and retail area – there’s even a cozy dining area where guests can look out onto the lake and enjoy a plump juicy hot dog fresh off the grill, a delicious pizza, or other great lake snacks. Fishing supplies, lake necessities, sportswear, marine and boating supplies are offered as well as fuel, bait and ice. Friendly and helpful staff greet guests at the fueling tee or behind the spacious oak counter. Outside, a cool, shady patio beckons with comfortable, lake-side seating – the perfect perch for enjoying ice cream!
The resort offers a wide range of covered and uncovered slips for boat storage of every size in a clean, well-maintained marina basin. A full rental fleet includes late model party barges and ski boats.
From across the water, cozy, Arkansas lakeside cabins offer lakers a peek at casual, rustic luxury. The cabins feature spacious rooms, a stone fireplace, fully equipped kitchen and beautiful furnishings in an eclectic blend of antiques and comfortable, contemporary pieces. From the beautiful area rugs and unique accessories and artwork in each unit to the bubbling hot tubs on the back decks, these Arkansas lakeside cabins have been designed to offer every comfort and delight for visitors to the lake.
Jim and the Self Creek staff are eager to welcome you to their home on Lake Greeson! Jim, Lori and family live on the grounds to offer visitors the kind of warm, personal service that makes Self Creek one of the most popular of all Arkansas lake resorts, and one of the top choices by families across the South.
Self Creek Lodge and Marina is part of the Tri-Pennant Family of Resorts, spanning two other Arkansas wilderness lakes and offering more of the premier luxury that you’re used to at Self Creek. Visit Iron Mountain Lodge and Marina on nearby DeGray Lake, and don’t miss Mountain Harbor Resort and Spa on nearby Lake Ouachita. All three resorts within the Tri-Pennant Family offer the same excellent customer service and memorable destination vacation experience that you deserve in a vacation. The families of the Tri-Pennant Families love to serve yours – and treat you like their own.
For all your accessories and/or vinyl flooring visit Pontoon Depot's shop site.
Do These 4 Things Now To Help Ensure a Summer of Safe Boating
By: Pdbmagazine.com
Boatyards, marinas and clubs are waking up after a long winter’s nap, and boaters have begun preparing their vessels for the season. While the boat needs to be looked at and readied for a summer of fun, so does your safety. The BoatUS Foundation for Boating Safety and Clean Water says that doing these four free or low-cost things now will help ensure a summer of safe boating.
1. Get a free Vessel Safety Check: Where else can you ask a professional to go over your boat to ensure it’s safe and has all the required safety equipment? And if the boat is not up to snuff, you won’t be penalized in any way and will instead get some welcome, friendly advice on how to improve. That’s what a Vessel Safety Check does, so schedule a Vessel Safety Check now. Offered by the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary and the U.S. Power Squadrons, Vessel Safety Checks are completely free, and you may be surprised by what they find.
2. Register your DSC-VHF Radio to get your MMSI number: Digital Selective Calling (DSC) VHF radios can greatly reduce rescuer response times – but only if you have taken the time to register the radio and request your vessels’ unique Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI) number. If it’s not registered, or still registered to the prior boat owner, you’re not helping yourself and could likely waste valuable response time in an emergency. BoatUS offers DSC VHF radio registration to the public for $25 or free to BoatUS members.
3. Inspect and prep your life jackets: Inflatable life jackets need to be opened up every season to ensure they are in good shape. Regular (noninflatable) life jackets need to be brought out of hiding, inspected, and placed in locations aboard the boat that make it very easy for passengers to access. Life jackets are no good (and not legal) if they are buried at the bottom of a storage compartment and not “readily available.”
4. Take a free boating safety course: The numbers don’t lie. The U.S. Coast Guard reports that 81 percent of boating fatalities occurred on boats where the operator did not receive boating safety instruction. Recognize the upshot of these statistics and get instruction now at BoatUS.org/Free. The free online BoatUS Foundation state boating safety course easily fits into busy schedules, allowing course takers to stop at any time and pick up again later where they left off. It could also earn your state’s boating safety certification. BoatUS membership is not required.
For all your accessories and/or vinyl flooring visit Pontoon Depot's shop site.
With Some Changes, Pontoon Boats Make a Comeback in The US!
Pic By: A pontoon boat at the Baltimore Boat Show at the Baltimore Convention Center (Kenneth K. Lam / The Baltimore Sun)
Written By: Baltimore Sun
Back this hitch up into the water, untie all the cables, and rope step onto the vinyl floor, and get yourself a coozie, Let's go….
Long before the pop-country group Little Big Town introduced its No. 1 hit, "Pontoon," pontooning has been a part of the boating community in the United States.
Its roots go back more than 60 years to a Minnesota farmer named Ambrose Weeres, who came up with the crazy idea of putting a wooden platform on two columns of welded steel barrels and spending his lazy summer afternoons fishing on a nearby lake.
But those no-frills pontoons, like Hula Hoops and Silly Putty, seemed to be a fading remnant from a simpler time.
Now, they're making a comeback with a few modern frills.
"It's exploded. Pontoons are selling much better than fiberglass boats," said Brian Schneider, whose Tradewinds Marina in Middle River has been selling pontoons for many years now.
In an industry that was struggling with a weak economy, pontoon boat sales now account for half of Schneider's income in boat sales.
Using the same Minnesota-based boat manufacturer that made the pontoon for Little Big Town's music video, as well as, for Kid Rock's video of the 2008 song "All Summer Long," Schneider said that popularity of pontoons is based largely around the fact "they're almost 100 percent usable space."
Who said anything about skiin'? Floatin' is all I wanna do, well you can climb the ladder just don't rock the boat while I barbeque…
Dan Naleppa of Salisbury is considering buying one of Schneider's pontoons after seeing them at the Baltimore Boat Show.
"It's like you're riding in your living room," Naleppa said while attending the show.
Certainly if your living room is stocked with plush couches and other accoutrements, though Naleppa said the 25-foot pontoon he is thinking about buying will not have a barbeque, minibar or some of the other amenities that seem to find their way on what many consider to be the best kind of party boats.
"They've come a long way," Naleppa said. "They're pretty roomy and they can go fast. I also like the fact that you can ride them year 'round, unlike some of the inboard-outboard motorboats I've had."
While a lot more high-tech than "The Empress" and the other boats that Weeres, who became known as "Mr. Pontoon," built en route to being inducted in Minnesota's Marina Hall of Fame, the modern pontoon industry has seen a revival in recent years. They're cheaper to make, easier to maintain, less than half the weight of comparably-sized fiberglass boats and more environmental-friendly because they typically need smaller engines.
"It seems like they're everywhere now," said Matt Finklestine, who sells pontoon boats in Lake Raystown, Pa. "Nothing is going to be a smoother ride than a pontoon boat because you don't ride on top of the water, you ride in the water. They're light, they're easier to trailer. The fiberglass chips don't break off and it makes it much easier to clean."
According to Finklestine, whose Full Performance Marine sells "everything from jet skis to 45-foot yachts," he has seen a resurgence in the past years. Finklestine said his 15-year-old company has gone from selling around two dozen aluminum pontoons in 2005 to five times that last year. The lakes around central Pennsylvania are among the most popular for pontoon boating.
"The difference between a pontoon and a regular boat is that with a pontoon, you have a lot more room. You can fit on twice as many people and you can pretty much cut the cost in half because they're very easy to make," Finklestine said at the Baltimore Convention Center, where a couple of his company's higher-end pontoons were on display and for sale during the Baltimore Boat Show.
Reach your hand down into the cooler, don't drink it if the mountains aren't blue, try to keep it steady as you recline on your black inner tube
The basic concept of the pontoon hasn't changed much since Weeres first introduced his boat, it's now a vinyl deck rather than wood attached to aluminum barrels, but pontoons have certainly been upgraded over the years to include everything like woven vinyl flooring for what essentially becomes the best under your feet feel, plus is slip resistant.
The size of the boats haven't changed (typically between 15 and 28 feet long) but they can be custom fit for whatever you need, fishing, cruising, skiing or racing.
The cost depends mostly on the size of the motor used, ranging from $15,000 to $80,000, according to industry experts. Pontoons can go as fast as 55 mph, but most are built to go a lot slower.
"The difference between a 50 horsepower and a 250 horsepower could be $20,000," said Finklestine, whose company typically sells pontoons with 90- to 115-horsepower motors. "A 28-foot fiberglass is more than $100,000, double what a pontoon costs."
Finklestine said pontoons are perfect for someone who "wants to fit a lot of people on the boat, wants some room for his kids to run around on and doesn't care about having the fastest boat on the lake."
Naleppa said he is looking forward to having his pontoon out on the Chesapeake Bay, as well as the Wicomico River and down to Ocean City this summer with family and friends, and was told that a 25-footer can comfortably seat around 10 and as many as 17, about double what can fit on a fiberglass motorboat.
Though mostly used on lakes, some pontoons have now become stable enough to operate on open bodies of water such as the Chesapeake Bay because of advanced technology. Schneider said he took "a gamble" bringing pontoons to local sailing aficionados who might be fearful that the pontoon would capsize in rougher seas.
Schneider said Premier Pontoons' development of a "PTX" center tube "lets the pontoon boats handle like a fiberglass boat." Though he doesn't recommend anything under a 20-footer on the Chesapeake Bay, "they're very stable, you've just got to get the bigger pontoons."
5 mile an hour with aluminum side wood panelin' with a water slide can't beat the heat, so let's take a ride on the pontoon makin' waves and catchin' rays up on the roof jumpin' out the back, don't act like you don't want to party in slow motion, I'm out here in the open Mmmmmmm...motorboatin' on the pontoon!