National Safe Boating Week

National Safe Boating Week (NSBW) is a program of the North American Safe Boating Campaign. NSBW aims at spreading a message of boating safety, encourages boater education, and helps to save lives. The campaign produces a variety of safe boating information intended to enhance and supplement the individual campaigns that take place through groups, associations and organizations across the United States and Canada during National Safe Boating Week.

The purpose of this section of AuxBWiki is to share best practice ideas for making the National Safe Boating Week a success. If you have done something locally or in your state that works, please [mailto:dvc-bl@bdept.cgaux.org let us know].

Ideas for promoting NSBW

 * Sample National Safe Boating Week proclamation
 * Build a NSBW proclamation
 * Time to Plan for NSBW -- February 2011 newsletter
 * Flotilla Initiates Energetic Safe Boating Campaign After Receiving NSBW Proclamation (from SITREP)

Help Set an Inflatable Life Jacket World Record!
The National Safe Boating Council, in partnership with the Canadian Safe Boating Council, invite boating safety professionals, the boating community and the media to participate in the third-annual “Ready, Set, Wear It!” Life Jacket World Record Day on Saturday, May 19. Participants in cities around the globe will gather to set a world record for the most life jackets worn and inflatable life jackets inflated. The goal is not only to promote the comfortable and versatile options when it comes to life jackets, but also to educate the public about life jackets and safe boating in general.

“Ready, Set, Wear It!,” previously named “Ready, Set, Inflate!,” will usher in National Safe Boating Week, this year May 19 – 25, 2012. Boating safety partners across the U.S. and Canada are teaming up with international partners to promote safe and responsible boating, including voluntary wear of life jackets, for National Safe Boating Week and throughout the boating season.

To ensure an accurate count from each location, all organizers are asked to record their event through photographs or video as well as a sign-up sheet (found under “Resources”). After the event numbers are tallied, the total number of participants is posted to the website.

The National Safe Boating Council and the Canadian Safe Boating Council hope to not only set another world record and surpass 2011′s 1,685 participants from six countries, but, most importantly, educate the boating public about the comfort and accessibility of inflatable life jackets. Throughout the year, the North American Safe Boating Campaign focuses on the goal of educating the public about safe boating and life jacket wear, and relies on events like “Ready, Set, Wear It!” and National Safe Boating Week to bring more awareness to this life-saving cause. For more information, visit our FAQ page or Contact the NSBC’s Communications Director. If you’d like to participate or organize a local event of your own, please visit the FAQ page.

Opportunities Abound
By Harriet Howard, Special Assistant for NSBW

Walmart, K-Mart, Ace Hardware, West Marine, Bass Pro Shops, are just some of the retail stores that have given our PA Officers space for their boating safety displays for National Safe Boating Week. With the 2012 campaign ahead of us, let’s plan to use these stores as opportunities to meet the boating public and sell them on safe boating practices. Now is the time to contact the managers of these establishments and secure a spot during NSBW. Some of these stores may allow us to use a part of their parking lot to perform VSCs. Other opportunities abound to reach the boating public, via the media. Download the statistics from the National Safe Boating Council’s website, to list boating accidents and fatalities for your press releases. Editors love statistics. Also, invite the TV and news media to attend your special NSBW events. Life jacket demonstrations and on-the-water rescues make great action footage for television broadcasts.

Look for the free and paid resources available from the campaign site in March. Such items as Wear It! stickers, decals and posters are especially favored by our younger boaters. For additional resources, download the Auxiliary Material Supply Center Catalog. Order through your Materials Officer. Don’t forget to post your planned PA exhibits and VSCs on the campaign website for NSBW and even before the big event. Share your great ideas.

How to get a NSBW resources
There is quite a range of free resources available on the NSBW website.

Keeping Current

 * RBS-Alerts service
 * Watercraft and Vessel Safety (WAVES) Newsletter

Boating Safety Online Quiz
Manitou Pontoon Boats is partnering with Discover Boating and Boatsafe.com to create an online quiz that gives boaters a refresher safety course for National Safe Boating Week, which is May 19-25. The quiz consists of 25 questions testing a boater's knowledge of standard safety procedures, and can be easily be added to any website. According to the Coast Guard, in 2008 there were 4,789 recreational boating accidents that involved 709 deaths and 3,331 injuries. Of the 709 fatal accidents, two-thirds of them drowned and 93 percent of those drowning victims were not wearing a life jacket. The Coast Guard's life jacket wear-rate observational study estimates that the overall life jacket rate for adult boaters in 2008 was only 8.1 percent.