Special by: Tom Rau

On Wednesday, July 27, 2005, my wife and I attended the funeral and paid our respects to a friend whose 80-year-old father had unexpectedly died. It was already a bad day for me regarding fatalities. During my boat smart beat telephone calls to Coast Guard Groups Milwaukee and Grand Haven that morning, I learned that there had been five fatalities around Lake Michigan over the last 72-hours.

Sitting in church, tears welled up as I listened to the hymn: “How Great Thou Art.” I thought at that moment other families and friends must be gathered at the funerals of those who died upon the waters over the last several days. Perhaps they too were listening to “How Great Thou Art.” Who would have expected a loved one’s carefree day would end up several days later under the dark shadow of a casket.

My friend’s father at least had enjoyed 80 years of life and produced two wonderful children who in turn brought into the world a fine brood reflective of his own qualities as a loving father. The average age of those who died over the last three days was 24 years. What will they leave behind besides a huge hole in the family fabric? Bear with me as I bare forth my soul.

It’s a crime to allow people to climb aboard a boat without any form of training whatsoever. Understand, it is not boats or the marine environment that is killing people, but the naïve mentality of its victims. They simply can’t grasp that it is not a user friendly environment regardless of how alluring it may seem. The five deaths over the last few days bring my count so far this season to 42 recreational water related fatalities; and those are only fatalities that I know of. One of the needless deaths occurred the other day in Calumet Harbor, Chicago. It involved a 38-year-old mother who drowned as her kids watched in horror from a 32-foot boat. She had gone for a swim off the boat, and as it drifted off, those aboard could not start the boat. She drowned as they looked on.

Just days before the Calumet Harbor incident a 32-year-old male was wave jumping on his new personal water craft and crashed into the lake off Sheboygan, Wisconsin. His fiancé was riding with him and between them they had one life jacket. She held him afloat awaiting rescue responders. He drowned before help arrived. Reportedly he had purchased the personal water craft three days before.

Recreational boating seems all so idyllic, but it can turn ugly in a heart beat. Despite how some may care to portray it, the marine environment is not about beer ads, smiling beauties casting their adorning eyes at mister stud boat driver, or the rest of the advertising hype that depicts the marine environment as a inviting giant aquatic theme park. It’s about dealing with reality. Those who depict it as anything else might attend a funeral or two to get their bent perspectives realigned.

And funerals promise to follow unless boaters learn to boat smart. Coast Guard recreational boating statistics in the first four years of the 21st century indicate that if current trends continue, the future looks gloomy to say the least. Take the average number of fatalities, 708, that occurred in the first four years of the 21st century and multiply it by one hundred years. That’s 70,800 projected doomed recreational boaters and possibly far more as recreational boaters grow in numbers as the U.S. population expands.

U.S. Census Bureau’s high series projections forecast that the nation will expand by 268 million people by the year 2050. Take reported boating injuries requiring medical assistance that occurred during that same four-year period and project it over a hundred years. We are looking at 1.5 million recreational boaters facing possible injures requiring medical treatment. The financial losses based on current trends are staggering—four billion dollars projected in property damage, and the figure does not include inflation or population increases, or even an increase in recreational boats.

Recreational boating losses will surely escalate if U.S. Census population projections hold true. Unfortunately another consistently will hold true unless legislators do something to stop it: nearly 83 percent of boating fatalities reveal that the victim had no form of boating education.

So how do the shortcomings end? The day legislators enact mandatory boating education. Until then throw any potential boat operator the keys to a boat and let them free upon the waters. So how many funerals will it take to end needless boating fatalities? Let’s stop throwing folks boat keys and first throw them the keys to smart boating. Now, that’s mandatory.

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