When boating, it is important to know which practice reduces the risks of a dangerous boating emergency.
The practice that reduces the risks of a dangerous boating emergency includes using a personal floatation device, performing timely maintenance on boat engine, avoid boating in turbulent water waves with small boats and having an experienced boat operator.
These practices will reduce the risk of a boating emergency from occurring when a boat is used.
Which Practice Reduces The Risks Of a Dangerous Boating Emergency
1) Always Use a Personal Floatation Device
Making use of a personal floatation device when making use of a boat is one of the things anybody on a boat should not joke with.
Personal floatation devices like the life jacket play a vital role when it comes to the safety of the people onboard a boat.
In situations of casualties or emergencies, it helps reduce the level of damages sustained.
But when it is not being used, the level of casualties sustained when a boat accident occurs might be fatal.
That is why it is always an important thing that everyone on the boat makes use of a personal floatation device before a boat sails off.
Apart from a life jacket that can be worn on the body to stay safe, other personal floatation devices should be used when boating too.
Such personal floatation devices includes the safety life buoy offshore ring.
This can be thrown into the water when there is a situation of a man overboard occurring.
This will help save the person and avoid dangerous boat emergencies from occurring.
2) Always Perform Pre-departure Checks Before Boat Leaves
Before you launch your boat on the water, you have to make sure that all the necessary things are intact.
This is what will make the boat journey a success and not a casualty.
Some of the things to be checked on the pre-departure checklist include availability of adequate life jacket, adequate boat fuel, complete first aid box, undamaged boat body, good condition of boat mechanical system.
This will go a long way in making sure that the boat journey will be a success.
During the pre-departure checking, if any fault is noticed, it should be corrected before the boat is used on any journey.
These are the practice which reduces the risk of a dangerous boating emergency.
3) Performing Boat Maintenance In Time
If you are always making use of your boat on a daily basis, your boat will always require maintenance fast.
Even if you do not make use of the boat daily, it will always require a maintenance at some point.
These types of maintenance should never be delayed.
Any delay could lead to the damage of a lot of other vital parts of the boat.
At worse cases, this could lead to serious fatalities when boating.
That is why the boat has to be given proper maintenance and servicing on time.
This includes changing of the engine oil, repairing rusty and damaged places on the body of the boat and other things like performing compression test on the boat engine.
These maintenance help keep the boat at the right working condition.
4) Avoid Boating In Turbulent Water
Boating on a turbulent water is a very risky practice.
This is even worse when it comes to the use of small boats.
But with large boats and sea vessels, they are made to withstand the turbulence.
But when it is too turbulent, it is still a concern.
This leads to a lot of the casualties that occur on the water bodies.
In most of the times when the turbulence is really bad, it leads to the damage of large sea vessels too.
this can be seen in a lot of ship wrecks involving large ships.
That is why extremely turbulent water waves are not good when boating.
5) Use an Experienced Boat Operator
Most of the times some of the boat casualties that occur could have been avoided.
But due to the level of experience of the person on the deck of the boat, casualties may occur easily.
That is why it is very important to make sure that you avoid the use of an inexperienced boat driver.
An experienced boat operator will be able to know the checks to be performed before boating.
Some of these includes checking the weather forecast and interpreting it correctly depending on the boating time.
When an experienced boat operator comes in contact with a bad water wave, maneuvering the wave safely may be possible without a casualty.
But when it comes to someone that is not experienced, casualties are always high when an emergency occurs.
6) Avoid Drinking High Alcohol Drinks While Boating
Consuming drinks with a high volume of alcohol when boating is very bad.
It is dangerous for the safety of the passenger on the boat.
It is also very dangerous when a boat operator engages in such a bad practice.
When looking at which practice reduces the risk of a dangerous boating emergency, consuming drinks with high alcohol volume is a very bad practice.
This is because when such high alcohol volume drinks are consumed, it reduces the mental stability of the person on the boat.
This can lead to some cases like the man overboard situation in which someone falls from a boat into the water.
7) Do Not Overload The Boat
Overloading a boat is a very bad practice.
That is why it always very important to make sure that you know of the weight capacity of a boat when you are boating.
This can be easily seen on the capacity plate of the boat.
To find the capacity plate of your boat, you can look it up on the deck of your boat.
This will help guide you on the weight of people and other goods like a luggage that should be placed on the boat.
This helps in avoiding cases of overloading which causes casualties when boating.
8) Increase Slip Resistance Of Boat Surface
When looking at which practice reduces the risk of a dangerous boating emergency, a non-slip boat surface plays a vital role.
In using a lot of boats, one of the things you will notice is the level of traction of the surface of the boat.
In some boats, the level of traction on the surface of the boat will be very bad.
This will lead to slippery boat surfaces.
This gets worse if liquids like water or an oil accidentally pours on the surface of the boat.
This can lead to a slip that can cause damage to the person involved.
This can cause the person to fall and get injured when coming in contact with hard objects on the boat due to the fall.
In worse cases, this could lead to a man overboard situation.
To avoid this when you are boating, you have to make sure that the traction of the surface of your boat is very good.
This will reduce the level of casualties that occur due to a slippery boat surface.
One of the ways to achieve this is to make use of a seadek boat flooring.
Also you can use it on the edges of your boat too.
Apart from the traction it gives to your boat floor, seadek also increases the aesthetics of your boat.
9) Always Carry a First Aid Box in The Boat
When you are making use of a boat, casualties may set in some of the times no matter how good your boat is.
It could be due to the fault of a passenger when involved in bad practices like consuming drinks with high alcohol level.
Irrespective of the type of casualty that occurs, one of the ways to reduce the damages involved is when you are with the necessary items that will help.
This includes having items like a first aid box on your boat when you are boating.
When looking at which practice reduces the risk of a dangerous boating emergency, having a first aid box is very important.
This helps bring immediate or temporary cure to a health casualty on a boat.
In doing this, it helps save the life of the person on the boat till the person can be taken to the hospital if the case is severe.
10) Carry Adequate Fire Extinguishers
Some of the times fire might erupt when boating on the water.
This can lead to a more serious casualty if not quenched on time.
In some of the times, the fire could originate from the outboard motor of the boat or any other part of the boat.
That is why it is always very important to make sure that a functional fire extinguisher is on the boat.
This will help put off any fire incidence when they occur.
Due to this, it will help reduce the casualties on the boat.
But if the fire extinguisher is not enough, this could lead to the total damage of the boat by the fire.
This damage will also be extended to the passengers on the boat and will lead to a man overboard situation as people will jump into the water to avoid getting burnt.
Conclusion
When making use of a boat, it is very important to make use of the best practices possible.
This will help reduce the development of emergency situations on the boat.
When looking at which practice reduces the risk of a dangerous boating emergency, things like performing a pre-departure checklist, performing timely maintenance on a boat go a long way in avoiding casualties on a boat.