Vic Smith wrote:
On Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:45:10 -0400, H the K
wrote:


How many times have you been aboard an open boat that swamped?

In nearly 60 years of boating in small boats, I never have.

Once, but I've done very little boating.
Weather kicked up quick when fishing with my grand dad.
Luckily, he was able to run it ashore and beach it, almost half full
of water.
It the engine had quit, who knows what would have happened.
But boats swamp all the time. It's a leading cause of boat fatality
mishaps. Pretty sure anyway.

--Vic

Top causes of accidents:
Number of Accidents/Number of Deaths/Number of Injuries
1 Collision with Vessel 1237 60 856
2 Flooding/swamping 475 89 179
3 Collision with Fixed Object 446 53 328
4 Falls Overboard 431 188 257
5 Skier Mishap 383 10 397

However, when we look at "all accident types" we find that capsizes
actually have more deaths from a smaller number of (reported) accidents:

Accidents/Vessels Involved/Drowning/Other Deaths/Total Deaths
All Accident Types 4789 6347 510 199 709
Capsizing 348 359 163 26 189
Carbon Monoxide Exposure 18 19 0 11 11
Collision with Fixed Object 446 501 23 30 53
Collision with Floating Object 59 64 4 1 5
Collision with Vessel 1237 2547 11 49 60
Departed Vessel 87 106 37 0 37
Ejected from Vessel 123 135 11 6 17
Electrocution 0 0 0 0 0
Fall in Vessel 140 147 1 1 2
Fall on Vessel 62 66 0 1 1
Falls Overboard 431 447 157 31 188
Fire/Explosion (fuel) 136 29 0 1 1
Fire/Explosion (non-fuel) 78 164 1 1 2
Fire/Explosion (Unknown origin) 25 84 2 0 2
Flooding/Swamping 475 497 80 9 89
Grounding 322 330 3 10 13
Sinking 16 16 0 2 2
Skier Mishap 383 398 6 4 10
Struck by Vessel 37 51 0 2 2
Struck by Propeller 83 86 0 5 5
Struck Submerged Object 154 154 4 1 5
Other 123 141 4 5 9
Unknown 6 6 3 3 6

So adding all deaths from capsize and Flooding/Swamping we have 278, or
39% of the total of 709.

Looking further, of the 359 capsizes, only 5 were by Aux Sail and 22 by
Sail only. Also, of the total 709 deaths, 15 were Aux sail, 10 were
other sail. One odd item jumped out: of the 15 deaths in Aux Sail, 8
were age 60-69. I guess I should be writing a will.

I looked at 2007 to see if this was an anomaly, and then, 4 out of 18
were 60-69. However, leaving out the "unknown age," 10 out of 14 were
50 or older.

BTW, Aux Sailboat make up a bit over 1% of the boats with power, so the
15 deaths are more than their share, but its still a small enough number
that people will think the are relatively safe. Since most un-powered
boats are not registered, its not easy to determine their relative
safety. We'd have to look at hours spent in various types of boats, etc.

from:
http://www.uscgboating.org/assets/1/...stics_2008.pdf