PropellerSafety.com

Archive for Warnings

Malibu Boats Safety Alert: Bow Seating Hazard

Malibu Boats released a Safety Alert regarding a Bow Seating Hazard on July 18, 2023. Malibu reports the safety alert is due to a tragic incident that occurred with a Malibu Response LX boat. A passenger was washed out of the bow seating during a bow swamping incident. The passenger was then hit by the […]

Malibu Boats loses 200 million dollar jury trial

Parties in the Batcheler vs. Malibu Boats Legal Case / Trial in Georgia. Stephan Paul Batchelder & Margaret Mary Batchelder (parents of Ryan Batchelder, deceased). Dennis Ficarra (operator of the boat and Ryan’s great uncle). Malibu Boats West. Malibu Boats LLC. 5 July 2023 UPDATE In late June 2023 Malibu reached a settlement agreement to […]

Feasel propeller case heard by Utah Supreme Court

On June 30, 2012 Mr Feasel and Mr Martinez were fishing. They were in a Tracker bass boat powered by a Mercury Marine outboard motor on a Utah reservoir. The boat swerved and both men were ejected. The unmanned boat circled in the Circle of Death. Mr. Feasel, the passenger, was repeatedly struck the propeller. […]

Perpetual Boat Propeller Safety Hazards & How to Mitigate Them

The boating industry has been plagued with certain boat propeller safety hazards / issues for decades, some for over a century. While progress have been made on many fronts, some problems remain perpetual / eternal. Some solutions that have been applied have failed, others have wilted on the shelves for a variety of reasons. Some […]

Safety Hierarchy, Hierarchy of Controls & Haddon’s 10 Countermeasures & Warnings

Engineering Tools Provide Solutions to Long Standing Boat Propeller Safety Issues The boating industry repeatedly just sticks it head in the sand regarding long standing propeller safety issues. We suggest its time to go back to the drawing board on Perpetual boat propeller accident scenarios, like the Perpetual Propeller Accident Scenarios identified in a related […]

Worst Boat Propeller Warning Ever: nausea category

Over the years we have seen many boat propeller warnings that were not as effective as they should have been for all kinds of reasons. Over the last 40 plus years I have looked at thousands of warnings on many kinds of equipment and none of them have ever made me sick. All that changed […]

Warnings for outboard motor can flip into boat

Bombardier and Mercury Marine outboard operators manuals have long warned parts of or all of an outboard motor may enter the boat after striking a submerged object. An example from the 2012 250 horsepower Evinrude E-tec manual is shown at right. A big thanks to Bombardier Recreational Products & Vehicles (BRP) for putting their operators […]

ABYC Consolidated Boat Warnings: a review

Back in May 2015, American Boat & Yacht Council, ABYC, released their consolidated boat warnings. ABYC grouped several warnings together for helm and transom warnings on specific types of boats. Earlier, we furnished a history of the development of ABYC’s consolidated warnings. The Importance and Timeliness of This Review Due to our specific interest in […]

ABYC Consolidated Boat Warnings: ANSI Z535.4 & ALL CAPS

We previously announced the American Boat and Yacht Council (ABYC) consolidated boat warnings in our May 2015 post titled, ABYC Releases Consolidated Boat Warning Labels. As we review those labels, one feature of several labels stands out, the excessive use of ALL CAPS. As ABYC talks about the new labels, they repeatedly mention American National […]

ABYC Consolidated Boat Warnings: History of their development

This post is the second of a three part series on the new American Boat & Yacht Council consolidated warnings for recreational boats. We announced the new labels in May 2015 in part 1, our post titled, ABYC Releases Consolidated Boat Warning Labels. History of Development Note – much of our story of the development […]