Recreational boating incidents based on marine surveyors reports: Economic, safety and prevention issues across Spain

The frequency and severity of the incidents of recreational boats in Spain during 2011 and 2012 are analyzed in terms of the region in which the crafts were registered. The data was obtained and coded from the damage reports of one of the main Spanish marine surveyors, source that has been used for the first time to our knowledge in the academic literature. About 3000 reports are manually coded before they are statistically compared in terms of type and location of the incidents, craft characteristics and skipper accreditations. Multiple hypothesis tests of proportions and averages are used to determine which categories of the study variables are different than the country average. The results show differences among Spanish regions, with small boats accounting for the incidents in the North of Spain and larger, more powerful boats in the Mediterranean Sea. The significant safety and prevention factors are the power-to-length ratio, the navigation certificates for the craft and the required degrees for the skipper. •Focus on under-studied recreational crafts.•Use of damage reports of marine surveyors as a primary source of incident data.•Sample size larger than 3000 coded incidents.•Definition of location profiles of incidents by frequency and severity.•Policy: monitor uses and craft power-to-length ratio and foster education of practitioners.