A Revolutionary War motto to warn off the PFD police

Following the lead of Canada, which has enacted a law requiring PFDs to be worn on all vessels, legislation mandating PFD use on boats in U.S. waters has been introduced here.

Don’t believe it. None of that is true. No legislation making PFD use mandatory is pending in the U.S. Canada has no such law.

When the misinformation in the opening paragraph appeared in a popular Internet sailing newsletter, all hell broke loose. Readers lustily attacked the impending theft of the freedom of sailors to make their own decisions about their own safety. Several viewed the threat to their liberty on the water as serious enough to justify invoking the defiant New Hampshire license plate motto “Live Free or Die.” A couple of Europeans, expressing the fear that their countries would emulate America’s PFD law, wondered what was happening to the “land of the free.” Even legendary yacht designer Olin Stephens weighed in with the gentle observation that, at age 95, he was happy he had done most of his sailing before the regulators took the fun out of it.

I would be the last to defend the dissemination of bogus information, but in this case it seems to have had a good result. It provoked sailors to say what should be said about attempts to force us to wear PFDs: We are capable of making our own decisions about wearing flotation when sailing; what we decide is not the business of the government.

There are no official proposals to make the failure to wear a PFD an offense punishable by law, but there is talk. It was in a news release about a “workshop” to talk about rules for PFD use that the misinformation about PFD laws got into the Scuttlebutt Web newsletter.

The release, from the National Marine Manufacturers Association, announced that the Personal Floatation Device Manufacturers Association and the U.S. Coast Guard would host a workshop in February at the Miami Boat Show to discuss “pending legislation that would mandate the use of PFDs.” It went on to say the Coast Guard and National State Boating Law Administrators are working together to “develop a national rule to mandate PFD use.”

The release was right about the workshop, but wrong about the rest. After the USCG had been flogged by alarmed readers for a couple of weeks, Scuttlebutt published a statement from a Coast Guard “recreational boating specialist” setting the record straight by saying no PFD laws have been proposed. The PFD association tried to do the same in a followup missive to the newsletter, but sowed additional confusion by referring to Canada’s “mandatory lifejacket legislation”—which does not exist.

Now that we know the facts, should everyone settle down, take their minds off of PFDs, and worry about other things that matter in sailors’ lives, like, say, what color of bottom paint to use next season? In a word, no.

The Coast Guard has not disavowed forced PFD use. Even its statement meant to calm sailors allowed that it is “exploring many options to improve PFD wear rates, including possible rulemaking.” And it’s certain that someone will have advocated mandatory PFD rules at that workshop (which will be over by this time this is published). The Coast Guard takes its cues on safety rules from a number of organizations represented at the workshop, some of which are friendly to mandated PFD use.

There’s no sinister intent to apply Draconian rules of the state in this profoundly wrong approach. Hundreds of people die each year in accidents involving boats, most of them without life preservers. From the American Power Boat Association (APBA) to the United States Sailing Association (USSA), and whole alphabets of others in between, boating organizations are pushing to get people to do the single most effective thing to save lives on the water—wear a PFD.

In 2002, there were 750 deaths in the U.S. related to recreational boats (5.8 deaths per 100,000 boats, up from 5.3 in 2001, the all-time low), of which 524 were drownings. Of the drowning victims, 442 were not wearing PFDs. The case for mandatory PFD rules rests on those numbers.

The numbers also show how irrelevant that case is to sailors and why so many of them are appalled at the thought of being forced to wear PFDs. Sailboats were involved in only 11 fatalities, eight of which were caused by drowning.

Beyond the lack of statistical evidence that sailors need a law to help them make their safety decisions, talk of PFD mandates enrages so many sailors because we represent a class of boating enthusiasts whose ethic is built on mastering the skills of seamanship. It should not surprise anyone that we believe the self-reliance we’ve earned should insulate us from an overweening government driven by mindless safety obsession to intrude in the private lives of its citizens.

That idea of self-reliance is beginning to be treated as subversive in a society where one’s own safety has somehow become everyone else’s business. Be safe or else. Shame on you if go to the beach without SPF 50 sunblock. And if you dare venture out in a boat without strapping on a personal flotation device, well, there oughta be a law.

We’re all for safety, sailors especially, and these are great times for safety at sea. The equipment has improved by leaps, and you see sailors taking advantage of it more than ever, wearing PFDs, safety harnesses and strobe lights when needed.

This is not true of all groups of water enthusiasts. Drownings of fishermen and hunters have been driving up boating fatality statistics. The sports section of a daily newspaper I read ran a photo in late December of a fellow standing while trolling for salmon on Lake Michigan in a 14-foot boat floating on 34-degree water. He was decked out in camouflage hunting gear over bulky insulating layers, but wore no life vest. A PFD law would fit him just fine. But when it comes to such laws, one size definitely does not fit all. Should sailors be required to wear a PFD on a hot, calm summer day to help this benighted angler survive another winter?

When it comes to wearing a PFD, we want a choice. With a PFD law, the choice would be between complying even when it would be patently silly to do so or being a lawbreaker and looking over your shoulder for the safety gestapo intent on ruining your sailing day.

It was heartening to see how the Web newsletter’s PFD scare stirred up sailors’ libertarian instincts. Not everyone’s, though. A few who responded opined that forced PFD use was a nifty idea. Several mocked the folks who dredged up the New Hampshire motto.

Well, I’m with the live-free crowd. In fact, I think the spectre of a PFD mandate calls for dusting off another Revolutionary War era motto, the one that was emblazoned on the navy jack of the Continental Navy in 1775, and would serve as a clear warning by sailors to those who would legislate our seamanship: “Don’t Tread on Me.”