PropellerSafety.com

Archive for Propeller Safety – Page 6

Circle of Death Warning

It has long been known that if you take you hand off the tiller or steering wheel, many outboard powered boats will circle hard to the right due to propeller torque. The boating industry has had various name for it through the yeaers. In the 1980’s some called it the “Circling Phenomenon”. Some call it […]

DJ Laz Will Not be Criminally Charged

Back in May 2014, DJ Laz, a popular South Florida DJ, was on the water in a 42 foot boat promoting Voli Vodka. The boat became high centered off Nixon Beach on Mashta Flats when the tide went out. Bystanders tried to push the large boat off the sandbar. One of them, Ernesto Herndandez, 23, […]

Volvo Penta FWD Forward Drive: safer or not?

Volvo Penta unveiled their new FWD Forward drive at the Miami Boat Show on 11 February 2015. It is a companion to their successful IPS forward facing diesel twin prop through hull drive (similar to the Brunswick / Mercury Marine Zeus drive). The new FWD drive bolts to the transom like a stern drive, but […]

Preventing Pontoon Boat “Over the Bow” Propeller Accidents

Children and adults have been falling off the bow of pontoon boats and being stuck by the propeller for decades. A typical scenario involves children sitting on the bow, outside the fence, with their feet dangling in the water as the boat moves forward. They hit a larger wake or wave and are pulled overboard […]

Propeller Safety Year in Review 2014

A review of the major propeller safety events in 2014 including safety meetings, accidents, legal cases, deaths of those involved in the movement, statistics, patents, articles published, public service announcements, anniversaries, regulations, and other related events.

Beautiful but Gone: Texas Boating Safety Video

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) released a ten minute video August 26, 2014 titled, Beautiful but Gone. The video features three families that lost teenagers to boating accidents and one family whose teenager’s brain was damaged as the result of a boating accident. Jacob Damoff’s mother Jeanne Damoff Brandon Fugates’ parents Mike and Belinda […]

Today Show covers Emily Fedorko accident & hazards of tubing

In the wake of the

Brunswick / Mercury Marine Moving Propeller Alert patent issued

We covered Brunswick / Mercury Marine’s Moving Propeller Alert back in November 2011. We followed that post up with a call for inventors and college project classes to consider trying design a free standing, energy harvesting, self powered version that did not require the use of the expensive underlying Smart Craft bus system. Now, about […]

Emily Fedorko, 16, killed by boat propeller while tubing: Connecticut

Emily Fedorko, 16 of Old Greenwich, and three other teenage girls were tubing about one to two miles off Greenwich Point Park, Connecticut on Wednesday 6 August, 2014. One girl was operating the boat, one girl was a passenger, and Emily Fedorko and a friend were riding a tube. Between 2 and 2:30pm, the girls […]

Nixon Sandbar Video vs. “Don’t Wreck Your Summer”

Miami New Times continuing coverage of boating safety issues identified Nixon Sandbar as a well known party spot with ties to some major boating accidents (like the DJ Laz accident, and the July 4th Dinner Key accident). As part of their investigation, Miami New Times shot some video coverage of the weekend of July 4th, […]