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Safety Information

Equipment: No matter how small the boat or how short the trip, some items of equipment are essential.

Emergency Distress Alerting: Guidelines for skippers of pleasure craft under 13.7m in length on the types of emergency distress alerting.

Buoyancy Aids and Lifejackets: Personal floatation devices come in two main forms buoyancy aids and life-jackets. Worn correctly a personal flotation device could save your life.

Disposing of out of date flares: Flares are ultimately explosives, therefore once they are past their useful lifespan it is essential that they are disposed of carefully. It is illegal to dump flares at sea, illegal to dump them on

Boating during hours of darkness: Before setting sail on a passage which will involve sailing in the dark, thought should be given to how the dark will make the trip different to a voyage completed in daylight only. Depending on the

Carbon Monoxide: Carbon monoxide poisoning can be caused by any fuel burning device that is not correctly set up and flued, such as diesel cabin heaters or petrol generators.

Notices to Mariners: Notices to Mariners are issued from a number of different sources, such as the UK Hydrographic Office, Trinity House or Local Harbour Authorities and may contain a variety of information such

Sea Sense: The RYA Sea Sense message aims to ensure that the many different forms of our sport using our coastal waters, do so in harmony with each other.

Integrating with Kitesurfers: The sport of Kitesurfing is growing at a fast pace. More and more boaters may come across kitesurfers and may therefore have an interest in their unique characteristics with regards to requirements,

Fishing Gear Entanglements: The RYA has for many years been concerned by reports of boaters experiencing fouled propellers and other entanglement with sea-fishing gear.

Overhead Wires - Beware: In recent years there have been a number of incidents where people have been killed or injured when their boat's mast came into contact with overhead power lines.

Fuel Storage: Increased care is needed in the storage of diesel (gas oil) where this contains biodiesel.

Kill Cord: Always, always, always use a kill cord and ensure that it is attached to the driver of the boat.

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See Also

Dinghy entrapments

Food hygiene

Elsewhere on the web

MGN 379

Advice from the MCA on the use and reliability of aids to navigation such as Radar, GPS and Electronic Charts