Life Jackets, Life Skills: Live to Boat Another Day

You see it every day on a Florida waterway somewhere. A boater speeding along, wind in his hair, smile spread wide across his face. His closest friends fill the seating areas of the outboard-powered center console. As you turn to hear the thumping bass from the boat’s sound system (that costs as much as the vessel’s navigation electronics), you realize he’s completely oblivious to the clearly labeled channel marker he’s happily cruising by on the wrong side.

National Safe Boating Week is celebrated annually during the 7-day period leading up to Memorial Day, May 17-23 in 2025. Perhaps nowhere are safe boating practices more important than in Florida where there are greater than 1 million registered vessels, plus an unknown number of out-of-state registered vessels each year in state waters.

Incredibly, in boating accidents in Florida in 2023--the most recent year statistics are available—75 percent of operators had no boating safety instruction. Annually, those numbers are changing thanks to a 2010 state law mandating safe boater education for anyone born after July 1, 1988. But for anyone born before that date, to operate a powerboat with greater than 10 horsepower, all it takes is money.

Safe boating education isn’t glamorous. By some, it’s viewed as a tedious way to spend one’s Saturday. But to many—especially those who survive a near collision, or others who realize there’s a lot more to learn about boating—the experience can impart skills that can benefit a boater for a lifetime. Many boaters who seek education fall into one of two categories—inexperienced operators who want to be educated and plan to operate watercraft responsibly, and experienced boaters who understand how valuable it is to refresh or update their knowledge.

“Invariably, I’m often told the same thing,” said Brian Rehwinkel, Boating Safety Outreach and Education Coordinator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), “’I don’t realize how much I’ve forgotten or never even knew.’”

Here are the latest statistics from the National Safe Boating Council and Florida FWC revealing why boating education courses are a critical component when it comes to ensuring boaters and their passengers return home:

• 3 of 4 boating deaths happen to passengers or vessel operators where the operator had no formal safe boating education
• 3,844 boating accidents, or 10.5 per day
• 564 deaths, 2,126 injuries, $63 million in damages
• 75 percent drowned, 87 percent of which were not wearing life jackets

• 83 percent of fatal boating accidents had a vessel operator who had no safe boater education
• 659 boating accidents, or 1.8 per day
• 59 deaths, 408 injuries, $12 million in damages
• 50 percent drowned, 79 percent were not wearing life jackets

The good news is, in Florida, because of the law issued in 2010, boaters are becoming better educated. In 2023, FWC issued 73,120 new boater identification cards to operators who successfully passed a safe boating course. Of those, 48,338 (66 percent) were issued to boaters who met the age requirement born on or after July 1, 1988. An additional 25,000 ID cards went to boaters older than the age requirement. Of the cards issued, 12,888 cards (17.6 percent) were issued to out-of-state residents.

The two take-home messages from the statistics are clear. Get educated and wear life jackets. Rehwinkel agrees.

“It’s the little things that make the difference between becoming a story and getting home safely,” he said.

First, no one can predict when a life jacket will save a life, so do what’s smart—put one on before leaving the dock or boat ramp. And second, make time to sign up for a safe boating course or better yet, at-the-helm training for boaters. Locate a safe boating course or at-the-helm training.

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• This article was featured in the May 2025 issue of Florida Sportsman magazine. Click to subscribe

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