PropellerSafety.com

Our Thoughts on Propeller Safety Topics – Page 2

Preventing & Mitigating Injuries and Fatalities from Outboard Motors Flipping into Boats: Methods & Technologies Chart

As our list of outboard motors striking submerged objects and flipping into boats continues to grow, and we see no response, we thought we would provide a chart of methods and technologies that have been proposed to help prevent the problem, mitigate the injuries, and speed the recovery of survivors. We hope this chart will […]

Boat Kill Switch Keys: Its Past Time for a Standard

The recent UK Milligan accident really stirred up the boat kill switch lanyard issue there (they call them kill-cords). Are we the only ones that think it is ridiculous to have seven different keys? At one time, most drive builders builders had their own key design (Johnson/Evinrude, Mercury, Yamaha, Suzuki, Tohatsu, and Honda). Here in […]

Rental Boat Safety Instructional Materials

Many rental boat propeller accidents, especially houseboat, deck boat, and pontoon boat propeller accidents have raised the issue of the quality of the instruction provided to those who would eventually end up operating the boat. Rental boat instruction on houseboats in particular often focuses on how to operate the boat and its many accessories, how […]

Boat Propellers Are Like Prescription Drugs

Several years ago while studying the recreational boat propeller market, I noticed it had many parallels with the market for prescription drugs. Since then, while pondering some propeller safety situations, I have come to see even more parallels. Significant investment goes into developing a line of propellers (just like R&D teams developing a new drug). […]

Propeller, It’s What’s for Dinner : A Propeller Safety Checkoff Program

Many industries have created “checkoff” programs to generate funds to promote their “produce” or “product”. “Checkoff Programs” originally referred to programs where the manufacturer/producer was presented a checkoff box at time of sale they could check if they elected to participate in the program. Early programs were very successful, and more quickly followed. Some are […]

USCG BARD as a Tool for Boating Safety Continuous Improvement

The U.S. Coast Guard BARD (Boating Accident Report Database) is a vehicle for driving continuous improvement in boating safety, however, it is not being widely used. We suggest all boat builders closely monitor their boats in all kinds BARD reported accidents, develop and test solutions where needed, and use those solutions to continuously improve the […]

The Drake Equation vs. the Probability of Being Struck by a Boat Propeller

We recently completed our Developing a Consumer Guide for the Selection of Propeller Guards and Other Propeller Safety Devices post. Part of that project involved creating our Propeller Accident Risk Worksheet. In that worksheet we identify five categories of Propeller Accident Risk: Boat Specifications Risk– some boat types are more likely to be involved in […]

Developing a Consumer Guide for the Selection of Propeller Guards and Other Propeller Safety Devices

This propeller guard selection guide is NOT ready for use. As brightly emblazoned on our documents, they are rough drafts. We posted them to generate a discussion that could improve them as well as provide some ideas to those working on the U.S. Coast Guard’s recently announced efforts to produce a consumer guide to propeller […]

Typical Crass Comments Made Online to Propeller Accident News Reports and Trial Reports

After reading the negative comments left on hundreds of propeller accidents reported in the media, we see some common themes. We thought we would make a check list so readers could just select the ones they want by topic. We have seen all these before. The phrases in quotes are direct quotes from their posts.

Entrapped by a Boat Propeller

The boating industry has long objected to propeller guards. One of their frequent objections is the possibility that someone might become entrapped in the propeller guard (physically caught on the prop guard). We find their objection interesting considering we frequently encounter reports of boat propeller accidents in which people were entrapped or entangled in open […]