Simple Boating Safety Tips

The Darwin Awards for boating highlight simple boating rules that any fool can follow to stay safe on the water

The folks at Safeboater.com have put together another list of unbelievable boating stories that highlight boating accidents that could have – or should have – been avoided.

The “Darwin Award” is basically an award given to people who “do a service to humanity by removing themselves from the gene pool”. Sounds kind of rough, but these people acted so recklessly on the water that its no wonder they did not survive.

These 9 boaters featured should each be given a Darwin Award based on their outrageously unsafe behavior on the water. Each wild boating accident story could have each been avoided by following very simple boating rules.

The Darwin Award list includes zany stories such as:

A man participating in an extreme boating sport “snowmoboarding” without a lifejacket
A university rugby captain who thought it would be fun to take a canoe on a river in 50 MPH winds
A man inadvertently blasted a hole in the bottom of his rowboat with a quarter stick of dynamite – to kill fish

Read more about these Darwin Boating Safety Tips for a subtle reminder of the simple boating safety precautions everyone should take while boating.

Safeboater.com has also put together a list of 23 Worst Boating Accidents that offers stories on even more outrageously stupid boating accidents over the years.

Simple things like wearing lifejackets (especially for kids or on smaller boats), not overloading a small boat or understanding basic boat safety rules can help boaters avoid unnecessary boating accidents.

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Diane Seltzer

Founder & Editor at My Boat Life

Diane is the founder of MyBoatLife.com as well as the boating lifestyle site for kids BoaterKids.com. Active in the boating industry, Diane is founder of Marine Marketing Tools, a collaborative site for sharing marine marketing best practices. Diane is also the author of the children's book The Amazing Adventures of Boat Girl.