By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
Well, Hurricane Beryl has left the building, so to speak, but we are still feeling the affects of the Category 1 hurricane. Many people in my area, around one million people, still do not have electricity as I write this. I live on Bolivar Peninsula, which took the brunt of the winds. I ended up

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
For most people who live on a coast, whenever a large storm is imminent there is one major question to be answered. That question can be found in a song by The Clash, Should I Stay or Should I Go. Sure, it’s a love song, but the main premise can surely be applied to our current

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
In this article we look at the top 10 known primary contributing factors of recreational boating accidents from 2023, the last full year for which we have data, with 2022 thrown in for comparison. Here are the tables (click on table for larger view):

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
Although the Pink Floyd song ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ is one of my favorites, and the “We don’t need no education” line in the song is universally known, the 2023 Recreational Boating Accident Statistics show that recreational boaters really do need education. This article

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
You may be reading this if you are a member of the 2126 Club, whose members were seriously injured in a recreational boating accident in 2023. If you are a member of the 564 Club, then you are not reading this because you are dead. To be a member of the 564 Club one must

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
If you are a member of the 564 Club, then you are not reading this because you are dead. To be a member of the 564 Club one must have died as the result of a recreational boating accident in 2023. You may be reading this if you are a member of the 2126 Club, whose members were

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla

The Coast Guard has released the Recreational Boating Accident Statistics for 2023. The following tables give you an overview. I ask everyone to look at the tables and ask themselves the following questions:

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
This Friday, May 24, was the last day of National Safe Boating Week. The Coast Guard used this week to reach as many people as possible in the hopes that they would learn something about safe boating. The National Safe Boating Council recommends these ten safety tips

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
Here is a scenario that happens all too often all over the US: You are the skipper of a nice recreational boat. You decide to take some friends out for a boat ride. Everything is going well when all of a sudden you hit a wave at a bad angle and you are thrown overboard. If you are doing

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
Safe Boating Week is from May 18-24, 2024. The purpose of the Safe Boating Campaign is to promote boater education and safe operation so that all boaters get home safely. Getting home safely from a recreational boating outing is simply a matter of following some

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
What is Vessel Stability
Stability is the ability of a vessel to return to its upright position after being heeled over by any combination of wind, waves, or other forces. An originally stable boat may become unstable at any time due to changes in

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
For years now I have been telling everyone they need a marine VHF/FM radio to safely operate their boat near shore (within 20 miles) because cell phones are not dependable. Although everything above is still true, the Coast Guard has a new system that incorporates your

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
I live in a resort community on a 21-mile long narrow peninsula on the Gulf of Mexico. My house is raised 21 feet above sea level on pilings. From my deck I can look one way and see ships go by, and the other way and see tugs pushing barges in the Intracoastal

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
It’s getting to be the time of year when people begin to look at boats. There are boat shows all over the place, and boat shows are one of the best ways to see what is new out there in the recreational boating world. The first time you visit a boat show you will be drawn to this

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
While large ships and certain other vessels require a Certificate of Inspection (COI), many smaller commercial vessels don’t require routine inspections. Just as recreational vessels are not required to have a Vessel Safety Check (VSC), smaller passenger vessels such as

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
If you watch television stations that have advertising, you probably realize that half of what you watch consists of endless (or so it seems) spot commercials lasting from as few as 15 seconds up to two minutes in length. Prior to 1970, when the FCC prohibited

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
I read a local news post regarding a collision between a bass boat and a pontoon boat that resulted in the death of the pontoon boat operator and serious injuries to two other occupants of the pontoon boat. The news post noted that the operator of the bass boat was indicted

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
Getting home safely is the most important consideration of recreational boating. Everyone knows they should be wearing a life jacket when boating, and we have also talked about visual distress signals such as flares and rockets. This column is dedicated to discussion of

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
Our purpose in providing free Vessel Safety Check (VSC) inspections is to enhance safe boating practices by letting the boat operator know if they fail to meet any regulatory requirements and to offer recommendations from the Coast Guard on how they can make their

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
Every year at Coast Guard Station Galveston the base hosts Safety at Sea for the Sea Scouts, a division of the Boy Scouts of America. There are several activities in which the Sea Scouts participate, including participating in the use of pyrotechnic visual distress signals,

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
I was in line for the Port Bolivar to Galveston ferry early one morning to go to work on base. The deck hands unloaded the incoming ferry, and I put my truck in gear in anticipation of moving forward to load the ferry. But we were not directed to load. After a few long minutes we could

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
We have all seen pieces of plastic and other garbage floating in the water near our boats or washed up on our beaches. There are many regulations that apply to dumping of garbage, sewage, and oil waste. This column addresses a few of those, and discusses the

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
“The Fog” is a 1980 American supernatural horror film directed by John Carpenter. It tells the story of a strange, glowing fog that sweeps over a small coastal town in Northern California, bringing with it the vengeful ghosts of leprous mariners who were killed in

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla.
One of the most important things you can do as a recreational boater is to know the territory in which you intend to operate. For Galveston Bay boaters, the number one hazard is shallow water. If you operate your boat in our bays, you are always either running in shallow

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
An anchor is not required equipment on a recreational boat, but a good anchor and anchor rode can save your life. Just this week some boys in a small aluminum boat with engine trouble were caught in a strong current with heavy winds pushing them out to sea. This happened

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
Gold and Silver
People see Auxiliarists in uniform performing their duties and know that we are part of the US Coast Guard, but often that is as far as their understanding goes. We are the unformed civilian component of the US Coast Guard,

By Bob Currie, Recreational Boating Safety Specialist
U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Station Galveston Flotilla
We have had several recent successful rescues in which boats sank or capsized. It is only because the persons aboard were able to get off a distress signal that they were saved. This is the time of year we boaters use to get ready for the next boating season rather than