BUILDING SYSTEMS FOR RISK MANAGEMENT AND HUMAN ERROR ANALYSIS FOR RECREATIONAL BOATING SAFETY APPLICATIONS (PROGRESS REPORT)

This report covers work conducted during the third finding increment of a grant to the Marine Safety Foundation to develop (1) a risk management approach for application to recreational boating safety in the United States; and (2) the core thought and processes for an ongoing capability to obtain useful information on the causes of boating accidents attributable to human error. These subjects are interrelated, and both have a profound potential to influence boating safety for the better. The risk management effort is directed toward defining an effective, integrated way to determine what 'best to do for boating safety', organizing and managing the efforts of the many participants in the U.S. boating safety effort toward that end. The human-error work seeks a systematic, ongoing knowledge of what is typically as the cause of upwards of two-thirds of all boating accidents, where only fragmentary information available before.