Appendix E. Areas of Interest.pdf

Appendix E: Areas of Interest

1. Cross-Disciplinary Partnerships

Drive measurable improvements in boating safety through strategic, cross-sector collaboration.

By partnering with established organizations outside the traditional boating safety sphere - such as public health, trauma care, medical examiner, or traffic safety groups - these collaborative efforts can create and enhance innovative safety campaigns. This approach leverages the experience and proven strategies of boating adjacent industries to develop more effective prevention methods and improve boating safety.

2. Standards Development

Develop and carry out a program to encourage active participation by members of the public and other qualified persons in the development and maintenance of technically-sound voluntary safety standards for the manufacturing of recreational boats and associated equipment. The standards should be designed to improve the safety of recreational boats and reduce boating incidents where the boats or their associated equipment is the cause or contributing factor.

3. Life Jacket Wear Rate Study

Develop reliable estimates of nationwide recreational boater life jacket wear rates. Applicants should include the use of paid and/or volunteer observers and actual observations of boaters on high-use lakes, rivers, and bays in different locations and times to capture the seasonal nature of boating. Methods for developing estimates must be replicable and collect data by recreational vessel number, type, length, operation, and activity by boater age and sex. Engine Cut-Off

Switch Link (ECOSL) wear estimates should be included.

4. Outreach, Marketing, and Year-Round Safe Boating Campaign Projects

Inform the boating public, industry partners, and media and advertising firms about encouraging and reinforcing safe boating behaviors. Projects may be general in nature or focus on power, sail, or human-propelled (e.g., canoe, kayak, and stand-up paddleboard or SUP) boats and should influence boater decision-making and model safe practices, with a goal of positive recreational boating depictions, including marketing and product advertising.

Applicants are encouraged to collaborate with manufacturers and advertisers to advance responsible media guidelines that ensure boating safety is accurately and visibly represented.

Examples of safe boating behaviors should include education and compliance with navigation rules (with focus on collision avoidance and safe speed); life jacket wear (including education on new and legacy life jacket labels and on counterfeit and mislabeled life jackets); boater education; engine cut-off switch use; cold-water immersion risk; consequences of boating under the influence (BUI); victim-focused storytelling; continued industry efforts to make boating safer; the record safety achievement of boating safety efforts; use of electronic visual distress signaling devices (eVDSDs); other safety equipment selection given activity, operating area, and carriage requirements (including how to identify signals of others in distress); the importance of required boating equipment; the need to register and maintain an electronic locator beacon (like

Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRB) and Personal Locator Beacons

(PLBs) and mobile maritime service identity (MMSI); fire and explosion prevention; and the requirements for fire protection equipment. Outreach efforts should consider first-time boaters, inexperienced operators, and the boat rental market.

As a condition of funding for any project involving Outreach, Marketing, and Year-Round Safe

Boating Campaign Projects, recipients are required to submit a monthly report of key performance metrics to the Coast Guard for review. All submitted data must be generated and exported directly from a reputable marketing analytics platform These reports must, at a minimum, include metrics on audience traffic, reach, impressions, engagement, and conversions, where applicable to the tactics employed. Recipients of grants are encouraged to adopt recreational boating safety (RBS) themes into their social media calendars.

5. National RBS Program Stakeholder Collaboration

Facilitate the collaboration of the Coast Guard, nonprofits, state agencies, and external stakeholders through workshops and committees to discuss RBS program management, best practices, data and evaluation, and how RBS statutes, regulations, and rules are administered and enforced. Desired topics of collaboration include, but are not limited to, incident reporting, boating under the influence, boater education, life jacket wear requirements, the use of national education standards, and the improved administration of Coast Guard-approved vessel numbering and incident reporting systems.

6. Officer Education on Boating Incident Investigations

Develop and maintain a Coast Guard-approved curriculum and materials necessary for instruction of recreational boating incident investigators in the United States. The curriculum must include at least 40 hours of instruction and must cover the requirements of Title 46 U.S.C.

Chapter 61 – Reporting Marine Casualties, Title 33 CFR 173 Subpart C – Casualty and Accident

Reporting, 33 CFR 174 Subpart C – Casualty Reporting System Requirements (in particular, the casualty reporting system administration requirements of 33 CFR 174.103), 33 CFR Subpart D –

State Reports, and 33 CFR Part 179 – Defect Notification.

The course must cover an overview of recreational boat incident investigations, general shipboard and vessel terminology, navigation rules and regulations, boat manufacturer compliance with 33 CFR 181/183, environmental distractions, witness interviews, collision dynamics, evidence collection and preservation, diagramming, and report writing, with an emphasis on adherence to definitions and detail in the incident narrative and with particular focus on human factor causal elements. The award must also include an instructor’s manual or handbook.

7. Officer Education and National Campaign on Boating Under the Influence (BUI).

Develop and conduct train-the-trainer and BUI detection and enforcement training courses for state and local marine patrol officers, Coast Guard boarding officers, and others. The goal of the training would be to provide students with the knowledge and skills they need to detect and deter recreational boater alcohol and drug use and related incidents. Additionally, the area of interest would support the execution of a focused national outreach effort to highlight the dangers of BUI through education and enforcement, as well as specific training on the effective use of the Seated

Battery of Standardized Field Sobriety Tests.

8. Outreach and Awareness Symposium

This area of interest will provide for a single national symposium to focus on the support of the

National Recreational Boating Safety Program. The Symposium is an opportunity for engagement between the Coast Guard, nonprofits, state agencies, and external stakeholders.

Symposium organizers must focus on professional development opportunities for participants while making every effort to ensure affordability and gain maximum attendance. The

Symposium should provide opportunities for grant recipients, as appropriate, to present results of grant projects and hold planning sessions. Sources and amount of other funding for the symposium must be clearly identified.

9. Livery Risk Assessment Training

This area of interest targets increasing awareness among livery providers and their customers regarding the risks associated with recreational vessel rentals. The focus is on identifying and mitigating hazards specific to rented vessels, including proper safety equipment use, vessel operation, and awareness of environmental conditions. Special attention should be given to addressing risks associated with high-risk vessel types, including vessels with issued safety alerts or which contributed to a significant number of fatalities last year. The program should include guidelines for livery providers to educate renters on safe practices and implement risk-reduction measures.

10. Vessel Safety Check Performance Videos (including library of Equipment Videos)

Develop videos showing the execution of Vessel Safety Checks (VSCs). VSCs are provided as a courtesy to the boating public, and these exams address requirements as shown on Form ANSC

7012 from the Auxiliary National Supply Center (ensure use of most recent version). Videos will show model execution of exams of an open motorboat, cabin motorboat, auxiliary sailboat, and paddlecraft. Videos will also address equipment requirements, reinforce availability of VSCs, emphasize the importance of education, address key safety behaviors, and allow the viewer to go immediately to a topic of interest. Videos will be divided into sections to allow the viewer to quickly find topics of interest.

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