BARD Boating Accident Report Database Training: Index
Propeller Safety BARD help
These materials are not professional advice. They are educational materials to stimulate discussion. They encourage boat builders to develop their own processes to best use BARD for their specific situation.
We hope boat builders / boat manufacturers will use them to Post Sale Monitor the Safety of their boats and take action when needed.
Links to BARD Training Materials
- BARD Training Videos – Malibu Boats is used as an example
- Training Support Materials for BARD – worksheets, iceberg chart, software, and more
- BARD Search Strategies for Boat Builders (paper)
- BARD as Part of a Post Sale Safety Monitoring System – includes our Process for Post Sale Monitoring of Power Boat Accidents Chart
- Media Coverage of our 2020 Launch of These Materials
- Post Sale monitoring boats for safety hazards our 2014 five part series
- Media coverage & Announcements of these training materials
- Coast Guard Manufacturer ID Code – MIC database
Basic Process
The basic process of Post Sale monitoring boats for product safety purposes is shown on our Process for Post Sale Monitoring of Power Boat Accidents Chart.
We explain how to use BARD for this process in a series of 9 videos. Four videos are introductory, four are specifically for boat builders. The last video illustrates additional tools and helps we provide for boat builders. Malibu Boats is used as an example in the Boat Builder training videos.
Use of BARD Boating Accident Report Database for this process is also explained on our post providing training support materials. Training materials include worksheets, and in our technical paper on BARD search strategies.
Essence of the Boat Builder BARD Training Videos
The first four videos explore BARD and some of its tools.
Five boat builder / boat manufacturer videos show how very basic searches can be conducted to typically find most of a boat builders boats involved in accidents in an annual Boating Accident Report Database (BARD).
The BARD training videos go on to illustrate more advanced techniques to find most of the remaining accidents involving their boats.
Much of the searching revolves around four columns in the Vessel Table of the BARD Database:
- Boat Manufacturer
- Hull ID Number – focusing on the first three characters, the Manufacturer’s Identification Code (MIC)
- Boat Model
- Boat Name
Our research has shown content of these four columns are often interchanged. For example the name of the Boat Manufacturer may be found in the Boat Model or Boat Name column. Similarly the MIC code may appear in the Boat Manufacturer column, the Boat Model column, or the Boat Name column. By the same token, the Boat Model may appear in the Boat Manufacturer, or Boat Name column.
We also discuss the process by which the data may be originally recorded by an assistant, then transcribed, typed on a form, then typed into the BARD database. We discuss how variants / misspellings / typographical errors can be introduced at each step along the way.
Much of our effort focuses upon how those variants are not random, and can be predicted.
Example of a Very Basic Search for a Boat Builders Boats in BARD
We loaded the 2018 Public BARD database into Microsoft Access and queried it for the Boat Builder Name of Malibu.
This method immediately misses some accidents such as those with additional words in front of or behind Malibu. For example, Malibu West will not appear in this search. Plus Malibu boats in which Malibu has been misspelled will not show. Also Malibu Boats in BARD without an entry in the Boat Manufacturer’s Column will not show.
The image below shows several Malibu Boat accidents the 2018 BARD database.
Malibu Boats, a portion of their 2018 BARD reported accidents
Discussion of the Malibu Boat Accidents Above
Examples like the image above are discussed in detail in the videos. More briefly, the quick search for “Malibu” found 32 accidents. Later we see two of those are kayak accidents (the last one plus the one up in the middle that says kayak. At some time in the past a Kayak firm used MB2 as its Manufacturer Identification Code (MIC).
While this quick search leaves out some accidents that are relatively easy to find, it is a good place to start.
Among the next steps are to search for Malibu in the boat builder column OR MB2 as the first 3 digits of the Hull ID column.
Even more 2018 Malibu Boats accidents can be identified by predicting variants of Malibu, variants of their MIC code, MB2, and variants of their Response and Wakesetter models.
Our videos go into much greater detail on how to find these additional accidents. They also show how to predict the variants / misspellings / typos that may also be in there.
As to variants of Malibu’s MIC Code MB2 in the image above you will see the first three letters of the Hull ID Code sometimes being MBZ, AWR (Malibu Axis Wake Research boat MIC code, US-MB2. The MBZ variant results from the digit 2 looking like a capital Z. The US leading variants come from some Hull ID Number tags having a leading US on them. Our video series shows you how to find these additional accidents and more.
Final Encouragement to Boat Builders
While using BARD may be a little challenging and out of your comfort zone, it can provide great rewards. You can monitor your accidents and accidents involving similar boats. BARD can be a very important tool in your Post Sale Monitoring of the safety of your boats. The faster you can become aware of safety issues, the faster you can respond.