AKBASSKING
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- Apr 13, 2008
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- Boat Info
- 1988 Yacht Fisher
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[h=6]ALBANY — Two downstate lawmakers are responding to a recent increase in local boating accidents and deaths with a set of bills promoting safety on New York’s waterways.[/h]
Assemblywoman Sandra Galef, D-Ossining, Westchester County, and Sen. David Carlucci, D-Clarkstown, Rockland County, on Friday announced legislation requiring boating safety courses and offering insurance discounts for boaters who complete them.
“Some operators do not understand the possible damage that can be brought on by slight inaccuracies in operation when navigating in high-traffic or tricky waterways,” Galef said in a statement. “This ignorance of the rules of operation cannot be tolerated in the face of dangerous and all too often fatal accidents.”
Two such accidents have recently garnered public attention.
On July 4, when 27 passengers were boating on Oyster Bay off of Long Island for holiday fireworks, their yacht capsized and sank, killing three children. The event sparked U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, a Democrat from Brooklyn, to call for capacity limits on boats longer than 20 feet. The yacht in question was 34 feet long.
In late June, an Ossining man died of an apparent drowning off of City Island. He had been swimming near a boat with friends when the vessel’s operator allegedly drove away as a prank.
Sheila Lilley, mother of the 26-year-old Ossining drowning victim, Bryan Johnson, said New York’s lack of boating education requirements is “appalling.”
“To think you do not even need to have a boating license — that’s insane,” she said in a statement.
The legislators’ new bill would require all power boaters to obtain a boating safety certificate by completing an eight-hour safety course.
Jessica Bakeman is a reporter for the Gannett Albany Bureau
Assemblywoman Sandra Galef, D-Ossining, Westchester County, and Sen. David Carlucci, D-Clarkstown, Rockland County, on Friday announced legislation requiring boating safety courses and offering insurance discounts for boaters who complete them.
“Some operators do not understand the possible damage that can be brought on by slight inaccuracies in operation when navigating in high-traffic or tricky waterways,” Galef said in a statement. “This ignorance of the rules of operation cannot be tolerated in the face of dangerous and all too often fatal accidents.”
Two such accidents have recently garnered public attention.
On July 4, when 27 passengers were boating on Oyster Bay off of Long Island for holiday fireworks, their yacht capsized and sank, killing three children. The event sparked U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, a Democrat from Brooklyn, to call for capacity limits on boats longer than 20 feet. The yacht in question was 34 feet long.
In late June, an Ossining man died of an apparent drowning off of City Island. He had been swimming near a boat with friends when the vessel’s operator allegedly drove away as a prank.
Sheila Lilley, mother of the 26-year-old Ossining drowning victim, Bryan Johnson, said New York’s lack of boating education requirements is “appalling.”
“To think you do not even need to have a boating license — that’s insane,” she said in a statement.
The legislators’ new bill would require all power boaters to obtain a boating safety certificate by completing an eight-hour safety course.
Jessica Bakeman is a reporter for the Gannett Albany Bureau
