PropellerSafety.com

Archive for Propeller Safety – Page 3

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Brunswick follows our lead, patents active trim cylinder US Patent 9,290,252

In December 2013 we published a report, Approaches to Prevent Outboard Motors From Flipping Into Boats After Striking Floating or Submerged Objects in which we identified several ways to prevent outboard motors from breaking off and flipping into boats after striking submerged objects. One of those was was active trim control (see pages 33-34 of […]

12 year-old New York boy killed by boat propeller during sailing lesson

Three boys in a sailing class at Centerport Yacht Club on the north side of Long Island, New York were out sailing in Northport Harbor Tuesday afternoon 18 July, 2017. Their boat was capsized on purpose as part of a man overboard exercise. Two of the boys stayed with the sailboat. The third boy was […]

USCG Kopytko boat kill switch PSA

U.S Coast Guard has released a Public Service Announcement (PSA) reenacting the June 1994 accident on Table Rock Lake in Missouri that maimed Phyllis Kopyto and claimed the lives of her husband Bob Kopytko and of their fishing guide, Paul Brundridge. Phyllis speaks over the reenactment video. The video is very forceful.

Get Connected NSBC kill switch campaign image of a hand

The National Safe Boating Council (NSBC) “Get Connected” campaign, funded by a U.S. Coast Guard grant, encourages boat operators to connect the kill switch / engine stop switch. The purpose of connecting the kill switch lanyard / engine stop switch or using a virtual lanyard is to cause the boat to stop if the operator […]