Boating accidents, casualties increase

Sixty-ONE people were killed and 502 injured in nearly 1,000 boating mishaps in California last year, the most annual accidents on record, state officials report.

Improved reporting accounts for the increase, although there were more accidents involving such tow-sports as wakeboarding and knee-boarding, says Raynor Tsuneyoshi, director of the California Department of Boating and Waterways.

Amy Rigby, the department’s accident analyst, says last year saw the most fatalities in a decade. The record high for deaths is 138 in 1971.

Thirty-nine people drowned, including 27 without lifejackets, in 2003.

“People think they can swim and don’t need to wear them, but they don’t picture themselves being in a collision, then in very cold water with their ribs crushed,” Rigby says.

Alcohol was implicated in about one-fifth of the fatalities. Nearly one-third of the victims were on fishing trips. Open motorboats were involved in 51% of the 963 accidents and jet-powered personal watercraft in 27%. The 12 deaths involving personal watercraft were the highest on record and up from seven the previous year, officials say.

Rigby says most accidents on all types of vessels result from inattention and drivers not knowing rules of seamanship, such as who has the right of way.

-- Pete Thomas