Roger Long wrote:
....

What constitutes dangerous weather in an aircraft is very different
than for a boat. People routinely fly "recreationally" in conditions
that would be comparable to sailing from Boston to Portland in a late
season northeaster. That really skews the numbers. In good weather
and simple airplanes, the death rate is about the same as in canoes.
....

This comment hung with me for a while so finally I had to look up some
real numbers. Here's some stats for "General Aviation," which is not
the same as recreational boating, but close, sort of.

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/Table10.htm

As you can see, the fatality number has been decreasing, but is still
only a bit lower than recreational boating, which has come down from
about 800 a year to 676 in 2004. Although you could claim a better
"passenger mile" rate for flying, the number of hours is only 24
million. Given that there are 12 million registered boats (and how
many unregistered canoes, etc?) I think we can speculate that flying
small planes is significantly more dangerous than traveling by small
boat, when measured by the hour.

And while weather may be a major factor in aviation accidents (36% of
all fatal accidents), roughly half of boating fatalities were in calm
water, and under 20% specified strong winds or rough seas, and weather
was cited as the primary case in about 6%. Weather or hazardous
waters was only listed as a contributing cause in under 20% of all
accidents.

And one more thing - there were almost 100 deaths in canoes and kayaks
in 2004, making this the second largest category, after "open
powerboats." PWCs and rowboats were roughly tied for third place with
about 55 deaths each.

http://www.uscgboating.org/statistic...stics_2004.pdf

It should be noted that only a small number of accidents actually get
reported, though almost all fatalities are included. However,
fatalities not directly related to boating, such as while swimming
from a moored boat, are not included. While I would love to be able
to show that powerboats are more dangerous than sailboats, the real
evidence is that most deaths are drowning, and 90% of those were not
wearing PFDs; and 70% of fatalities occurred where the operator had
received no training. One the other hand, lack of rules knowledge,
lack of lookout, mechanical failure, etc. were pretty low on the list
- general stupidity (recklessness, inattention, inexperience,
excessive speed, alcohol) was pretty high.