Anyway, I find reading about the drowing cases to be rather instructive. Here’s the thing: If you are ON a boat (not IN a boat) you should have your life vest on for maximum safety. The edge of a boat is infinitesimally wide, the slipperyness of a surface is independent of the size of the boat (but linked to the function of the boat) and although there is a lower chance of a lager boat capsizing, the larger the boat the greater the fall (and falling haphazardly onto water is not safe). Hey, I know a guy who was in charge of sonar on a naval vessel which a few years ago lost a crew member… the guy was last seen heading to the stern with the trash which was his job to dump into the sea (which raises some other questions). The seas were flat and calm and clear. He was not noticed missing for a hour or so. They turned the boat, a destroyer or something big like that, around and tracked their course backwards and found the guy bobbing up and down in the water waiting to be rescued.

Yes, he was wearing a vest.

But yes, context is important and there are nuances!

You’ve known *one* couple whose boat was slowly sinking? Heck, I’ve known lots. I’ve *been* [half of] “a couple whose boat was slowly sinking.” Luckily, we could get it bailed out simply by going on the other tack.

I also knew a woman who lost a friend because he put on his life vest below decks. The fishing boat he was working on was rammed. It turns out, when one boat is rammed by another, the rammed boat can go down really, really fast. (Most of the crew got out and survived, which is how the woman knew exactly what happened to her friend.)

Boats that hit floating containers, “dead heads” [barely floating logs] whales, etc. have also been known to go down really quickly. In fact, one fiberglass sloop sank amazingly fast after the skipper wrapped his jibsheet around the propeller. (In that case, he was very close to land and was able to run aground before it sank completely.)

So, just because one couple’s boat was constantly, slowly sinking does NOT mean “boats don’t go down that fast.” And when some sailors put on the auto pilot and sleep underway with no one on watch– another dangerous practice, although one single-handers can’t avoid– the boat doesn’t even have to sink all that fast to make wearing a life vest below decks lethal.

That is not, of course, an excuse not to wear a harness when far from land, or to neglect wearing a life vest for an afternoon spin in an open boat on a lake.

P. Smith, just about all analogies with cars fail. Central Texas has seen several fatal accidents on inland lakes where people were thrown from a fast motorboat run aground. Lifevests don’t much save someone from a broken neck. A seatbelt might help. Except, boats generally don’t have seatbelts. What was needed was a sober helm who knew what he was doing. A large part of the problem is boats being “driven” like a car.

Beach cats and sailing dinghies easily capsize, and those are where lifevests are de rigour. Larger keelboats present somewhat different issues. I don’t much credit the argument that you need a lifevest because the boom might knock you out before you hit the water. A boom hitting you in the head might also kill you or break your neck. If you’re suffering a concussion on tacks and jibes, you’re suffering a problem as dire as falling overboard without a lifevest.

I’m not arguing against lifevests. I’m just pointing out that boats vary a lot, circumstance afloat varies even more, and black-and-white rules are less useful than judgment.

Interesting use of statistics, except that you failed to hold constant whether the people wearing life jackets can swim or not. I would guess you’d find more non-swimmers than swimmers in the 13% who wear life vests; more swimmers than non-swimmers in the 87% who don’t. In fact, I’d guess the negative correlation between knowing how to swim and wearing life vests would be extremely high. It could even be that non-swimmers are *more* likely to survive being thrown overboard than swimmers are– because the non-swimmers aren’t as likely to be withoutlifevests.

It’s likely the same goes for idiots who refuse to wear lifevests. They “think” that being thrown out of the boat is a good thing, that nothing will hit or hurt them because they land on water. Wrong. Even if they don’t collide with the other boat as they are ejected, other bodies in a boat, or objects in the water, those “thrown clear” are still quite likely to be knocked unconscious or at least dazed by the impact with the water.

A person can’t swim when unconscious. A lifevest will keep the person’s head out of water and able to breath, even if it doesn’t prevent against injury. I’d rather wear one of those old “horse collar” lifevests than nothing, even if they are awkward and uncomfortable. At least they are guaranteed to work.

Then again, I don’t like going out on the water in the first place.

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“Quan cites field studies that find 90 percent of the toddlers wearing life vests on boats. â??But over the age of 14, it’s only 13 percent.” (http://www.seattlechildrens.org/classes-community/community-programs/drowning-prevention/teen-safety-promotion/)

So about 13% wears a life jacket, and about 10% of drowning-death victims wore one.. That evens out, there does not seem to be any overrepresentation of non-wearers among the drowning deaths.