Boating safety starts with equipment checks

By Craig Shantz, Vice Commodore

As we look forward to this year’s boating season and launching our boats, this is the perfect time to review and recheck all our safety equipment. As captains, and experienced cruisers, you’ve done it many times before, but equipment can wear out, break, expire, and sometimes even get misplaced. 

Following is a USCG REQUIRED VESSEL SAFETY EQUIPMENT chart, which can be used as a convenient reference to begin your inspection. Clearly, this is the minimum, and my guess is that you are all much better prepared than just meeting the requirements on this chart.

Some other safety equipment not listed, and items to check, might include:

- Fire extinguishers level of charge and expiration dates. Do you really feel safe with the minimum number?

- Fire blanket

- Carbon monoxide detector

- Pyrotechnic distress flare expiration dates

- Fresh batteries in your LED visual distress signal – electronic flare and flashlights

- VHF radio (fresh batteries in a handheld)

- Anchor and rode ready to deploy in an emergency

- Plugs (cone-shaped wooden, or soft foam)

- The First Aid kit has fresh supplies: the Band-Aids stick and the aspirin isn’t expired

- An emergency bailing device

- Especially for sailors, a harness, tether and jack lines

- For inflatable life jackets, it’s not only a good idea to check the cylinder cartridge, but also to manually inflate it and check that it holds air for 24 hours

- If you have a ditch bag, check its contents too

Obviously, the list goes on, and you will decide what best suits your needs to keep your crew, passengers and vessel safe.

Wishing you a fantastic boating season, have fun, and I look forward to seeing you on the water.