People often see statistics as something associated with dull presentations about profit & loss statements in corporate boardrooms. But the recent 2024 Recreational Boating Statistics report offers the marine community a good deal of information that could make for safer boating in the future. There’s nothing joyful in reading statistics about the causes of boating accidents, since we know that behind those figures can be pain and upheaval in people’s lives. But this year, we saw a 50-year low in the number of boating fatalities, according to figures released by the Coast Guard in early July 2025.
An important point addressed by the report is boating safety instruction, which has now become mandatory in New York State as of January 2025. Nationwide, most states impose requirements in this area. In accidents where information about boating instruction was known, there were higher survival rates when operators had a nationally approved boating safety certificate.
The 2024 statistics point to alcohol as the leading contributing factor in boating accidents. On this subject, a new bill has been proposed in the New York Senate for revocation of a driver’s license for someone convicted of operating a vessel under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
The Coast Guard statistics also showed that collisions with vessels, objects, groundings were the most frequent first event in incidents, attributing to 56% of incidents. Here in the Northeast, it can be difficult to gauge water depth without local knowledge. As far as groundings and aids to navigation, there was a comment period back in June about proposals to remove roughly 350 aids to navigation between New Jersey and Maine.
Although it is argued that the cost of maintaining traditional buoys becomes more questionable with all the electronic navigation tools out there, many still swear by paper charts and “red right return.” There was a similar debate years ago with celestial navigation, where some questioned the laborious process of taking noon fixes and using air almanacs in the age of GPS and ECDIS. But Spica and Arcturus will remain in the heavens forever, whereas removed nuns and cans could be sorely missed.
Although not related to safety, the 2024 statistics showed a rise in the number of registered vessels, from 11,546,512 vessels in 2023 to 11,674,073 vessels in 2024 (slightly over 1%). It’s nice to see an upward direction here, given the hardships inflicted on the industry by COVID in recent years.
For the period between 2015 and 2019, there was a 2.8% decrease in incidents, 3.0% decrease in deaths, 4.3% decrease in injuries, 0.3% decrease in vessel losses, and 0.3% decrease in damage… all areas where we want to see a downward direction.
In terms of the causes of incidents, some of them seem very controllable, while others could appear to be out of the control of a boater, such as equipment failure or hull failure. However, there are those who say that everything is within our control, and that there is no reason to be unprepared in terms of equipment, or unclear as to the operation of COLREGs, as confusing as they might sometimes be. This is especially true with the tricky ones involving being “constrained by draft” or “restricted in ability to maneuver.” Even federal district courts sometimes have difficulty with those in close quarters settings. But everyone knows the easy rules, such as “duty to maintain a lookout” or “overtaking vessel is burdened.” Despite this, “improper lookout” was near the top of the list, attributing to 464 incidents, slightly above “operator inexperience” (at 436 incidents) and “operator inattention” (at 551 incidents).
Other contributing factors of incidents that remained high on the list were “alcohol use” (244 incidents), “excessive speed” (279 incidents), “navigation rules violations” (288 incidents), “machinery failures” (289 incidents), “weather” (188 incidents), “hazardous waters” (172 incidents), and “wakes” (122 incidents). “Overloading, improper loading, and people on gunwales, bows, and transoms” sadly remain significant contributing factors, despite being something controllable. It’s worth noting that the figures in this report cover a wide range of territory nationwide, so while inexperience might be met with gentle leniency on Lake Champlain, a location such as Haulover Inlet at Biscayne Bay forgives nothing, and will mercilessly ferret out every weakness, whether in gear or seamanship skills.
Time may tell if nationwide boating safety education will make for a continued downward trend in accidents and incidents. That would be a good statistic to see.
Ref: 2024 Recreational Boating Statistics, COMDTPUB P16754.38, U.S. Department of Homeland Security – U.S. Coast Guard, Office of Auxiliary and Boating Safety