Flab factor won’t trim boat capacity limits
By Jim Flannery / Senior Writer
Recreational boats won’t be affected
by a Coast Guard proposal to trim the
number of passengers permitted
aboard inspected passenger vessels.
The measure, addressing the fact that
Americans weigh a lot more today than
they did when current standards were
adopted, bases passenger capacities on
an average adult weight of 185 pounds
instead of 160 or 140 pounds.
A 2004 Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention report says both men
and women gained on average more
than 24 pounds between the 1960s and
2002. Average adult weight has risen
from 160 pounds to 185. Teenagers,
too, are chunkier. Boys 12 to 17 years
old have put on 15 pounds, weighing
in at 141; girls average 12 pounds heavier now at 130, according to the CDC.
Heavier customers became an issue
for the inspected passenger vessel industry when 25 people died in 2004 and
2005 in two excursion-boat capsizes.
Five died aboard the Lady D, a 36-foot
pontoon water taxi, on Baltimore Harbor in March 2004 when it was hit by a
sudden squall. Twenty more lost their
lives aboard the Ethan Allen, a 40-foot
monohull tour boat that capsized on
New York’s Lake George in October
2005 when it encountered a large wake.
Overloading because of outdated passenger weight standards was a factor in
both capsizes, according to the National
Transportation Safety Board. The number
of people permitted aboard the Lady D
and Ethan Allen was based on a Coast
Guard weight standard of 140 pounds per
person for protected waters. The actual
average weight of the passengers aboard
the Lady D was 168 pounds; aboard the
Ethan Allen it was 178 pounds.
If adopted, the rule would require operators to reduce passenger capacities
by a fixed percentage, depending on
whether their original capacity was
based on an average 140 or 160 pounds
per person. Or they can modify the vessel — maybe add foam to increase buoyancy — so they don’t have to scale back
their numbers. Another option is to
show they have enough margin of safety
built into their carrying capacity so they
don’t have to do either of those things.
The Aug. 20 proposed rulemaking
would affect an estimated 6,073 passen-ger-carrying vessels, those regulated
under Title 46 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, subchapters H, K and
T — typically sailing boats, gaming vessels, tour boats, ferries, water taxis,
charter fishing boats, and a catch-all category of general use. A June Coast
Guard report suggests most of the passenger reductions will be on excursion
and gaming boats, and some ferry boats.
Americans’ expanding waistlines
have brought no changes yet in the
posted passenger capacities of recreational boats, says Jeff Hoedt, chief of
the Coast Guard Boating Safety Division. The division took a look at passenger capacities for pleasure boats last
year and found no need yet for updating average weights, because of the big
safety margins already designed into
their carrying capacities, Hoedt says.
The Coast Guard requires a capacity
plate on all recreational monohulls
smaller than 20 feet except kayaks, canoes, sailboats and inflatables. These
plates show a boat’s weight- and pas-senger-carrying and horsepower capacities, and though federal law doesn’t require boaters to comply with posted capacities, some state laws do. Hoedt says
Coast Guard tests show that mandated
flotation in recreational boats smaller
than 20 feet keep them afloat — at rest
in calm water with proper weight distribution — even when they carry five
times their rated weight capacity.
“We’ve always built in a very generous design factor,” says Cindy Squires,
National Marine Manufacturers Association director of regulatory affairs.
“We’re not getting any indication from
the Coast Guard or anyone else that we
may need to look at recreational boats.”
NMMA and its technical arm, the
American Boat and Yacht Council,
nonetheless will be monitoring the relationship between boat stability and big
weight gains among boaters. Hoedt says
capsize fatalities are not trending up.
Most small-boat capsizes are due to
boaters’ exceeding a vessel’s posted
weight or passenger capacity, poor
weight distribution, or taking an overloaded boat out in rough water, he says.
