PropellerSafety.com

Archive for Boating Safety – Page 3

Design Chart to prevent outboards from flipping into boats – UPDATED

We updated our Design Chart to Prevent Outboard Motors From Entering / Flipping Into The Boat After Striking Submerged Objects today (23 October 2018). The primary addition was adding the option to Minimize the Hazard of the Outboard Entering the boat by killing the engine when the outboard breaks loose from the boat. The industry […]

LifeCord – smart kill switch lanyard

Inspired by the 2013 Milligan accident in the UK, John Barker, a UK businessman did something about the problem. At least in the UK, some boaters, especially those in rougher water want to attach their kill switch lanyard (known as a kill cord in the UK). However sometimes they forget to attach the lanyard. This […]

Rex Chambers speaks on The Leash: video

Rex Chambers, well known professional bass angler and his fishing partner were injured 3 May 2014 on Wheeler Lake in Alabama when they struck a submerged log, the 250 horsepower Mercury outboard motor broke off, and flipped into the boat still under power. His fishing buddy was struck in the head by the skeg. Rex […]

Stages of grief: boating industry resists proposed safety devices

The recreational boating industry has long used a series of objections in their efforts to resist proposed safety devices, including propeller safety devices. The industry raises different objections during different stages of the process. Overall the process resembles the 5 stages of grief people pass though when a loved one dies. The five stages of […]

Brunswick follows our lead, files patent for neural network Virtual Propeller Guard

Brunswick Corporation filed U.S. Patent Application “Person Detection in a Marine Environment” on 5 May 2016. The patent application (US 2017/0323154 A1) was published by the U.S. Patent Office on 9 November 2017. As of late January 2018, the patent has yet to be granted. The basics of Brunswick’s patent application teaches the use of […]

Propeller Safety Year in Review 2017

A brief review of the major propeller safety events in 2017 including safety meetings, accidents, legal cases, deaths of those involved in the movement, statistics, patents, articles published, public service announcements, anniversaries, regulations, and other related events.

Regulations proposed requiring propeller guards on boats used to instruct children: New York

An 18 July 2017 Centerport Yacht Club propeller accident claimed the life of 12 year-old Ryan Weiss. Three boys learning how to sail were with a sailboat that had been capsized on purpose as a training exercise. One of the boys, Ryan Weiss, was picked up by a RIB piloted by an 18 year old […]

Boat Design Defects: NBC4 Investigation “Small Craft Advisory”

NBC Channel 4, Washington D.C., aired a series of stories on boat design defects on 16 August 2017. The series focuses on: Two families: (1) family of Ryan Batchelder, 7 year old boy killed by a boat propeller in Georgia in 2014, and (2) family of Niki Bell, struck by a boat propeller in California […]

Perpetual Boat Propeller Safety Hazards & How to Mitigate Them

The boating industry has been plagued with certain boat propeller safety hazards / issues for decades, some for over a century. While progress have been made on many fronts, some problems remain perpetual / eternal. Some solutions that have been applied have failed, others have wilted on the shelves for a variety of reasons. Some […]

Safety Hierarchy, Hierarchy of Controls & Haddon’s 10 Countermeasures & Warnings

Engineering Tools Provide Solutions to Long Standing Boat Propeller Safety Issues The boating industry repeatedly just sticks it head in the sand regarding long standing propeller safety issues. We suggest its time to go back to the drawing board on Perpetual boat propeller accident scenarios, like the Perpetual Propeller Accident Scenarios identified in a related […]