In 2022, when U.S. Coast Guard officials told John Adey what they had in mind with regard to American Boat & Yacht Council standards for how boats are built, he actually felt scared. Then, he informed the ABYC board of directors. They, too, squirmed in their seats.
“I’ll be honest, it was frightening when they called us and said, ‘We want to prove or disprove whether these standards are effective,’” says Adey, who is president of the American Boat & Yacht Council. “It was a gut check for our board of directors to encourage this.”
The Coast Guard is working toward what Adey calls “a once-in-a-lifetime rule-making change” for how boats must be built, both within the United States and for boats imported into the country. There is no timeline for when this rule-making will happen, but the intent in the coming years is to update federal standards that date back to 1971. Those required federal standards have not changed much, Adey says, while boats and boatbuilding certainly have. The voluntary standards that the ABYC creates through the expertise of more than 400 industry volunteers are believed to have kept up with the times — but the Coast Guard wanted to prove it for rulemaking purposes.
It was the first in-depth dive of its kind into the effectiveness of ABYC standards. The independent research firms Industrial Economics Inc. and ITA International parsed boating-accident data from 2008 to 2021, alongside data about boats certified by the National Marine Manufacturers Association, which ensures compliance with ABYC standards through inspections. Ultimately, researchers used a data set of 12,271 boats associated with 11,355 accidents.
Results of that research are clear, according to Jeff Ludwig, chief of the Recreational Boating Product Assurance Branch at the Coast Guard: “This important research confirms what many have believed anecdotally, which is recreational boats that are built to voluntary standards are less likely to be in certain accidents than those built to the Coast Guard’s minimum standards.”
Researchers found that boats certified to ABYC standards are 43% to 47% less likely to be involved in certain types of accidents. In addition, researchers found that adherence to ABYC standards reduces the likelihood of fatalities by 26% to 58% in accidents that do occur.
“When those numbers came out, we were thrilled,” Adey says. “This study basically says that if ABYC weren’t there, in round numbers, you would have 50% more accidents and 50% more deaths. Now, we have what we need to make this law saying that every boat needs to be made like this — even boats coming in from out of the country.”
The report, which was sent to the Coast Guard at the end of January, also notes six areas that ABYC volunteers say should be prioritized in changes to the Code of Federal Regulations: apply electrical requirements to outboard motorboats, apply fuel requirements to outboard motorboats, introduce carbon monoxide detectors to boats with enclosed accommodation compartments, introduce capacity requirements for boats less than 26 feet, introduce powering requirements, and include personal watercraft in regulations.
Adey says these priorities are based on the judgment of industry volunteers who continually create and update ABYC standards — which means those volunteers’ companies will have a significant advantage when the rulemaking happens.
“If you’re a builder that’s involved with ABYC, you’re not going to be surprised when this regulation gets dropped. Your product is already going to comply,” Adey says. “I think the builder that is not paying attention to ABYC is the one that is going to be surprised.”
This type of rule-making also shows the importance of volunteering with the ABYC, he adds. Similar to how legislation can be affected by people who take the time to speak with lawmakers during advocacy events like the NMMA’s American Boating Congress, regulatory rule-making is now being influenced by the work of ABYC volunteers.
“You are volunteering your time to do this. The manufacturers are paying for your time to do this,” Adey says. “The decision made to participate in the process resulted in this study.”
The research has additional benefits beyond influencing the rulemaking process with industry-stakeholder input, Adey adds. Boatbuilders and product manufacturers can also use the report to promote the safety of their products.
“I’ve tasked marketing with being able to take that and put it into a tagline that manufacturers should be able to use in their ads,” Adey says. “It’s a big deal.”
In terms of next steps, the results of this fall’s elections could affect timing of the rule-making, given the leading presidential candidates’ different approaches to governing. News reports have long noted that the Biden administration dramatically increased the creation of what are considered “significant rules” compared to the Trump administration, which looked to scale back rule-making.
“Back when Trump was elected, the first thing he said was no new regulations. That could happen again,” Adey says, adding that no matter what happens at the ballot box, progress is being made. “Our Coast Guard guys feel like they can start the ball rolling. This is the farthest we’ve ever gotten with scientific data.”
