TORONTO, May 14, 2012 /CNW/ – North American Safe Boating Awareness Week will take place across Canada from May 19^th to May 25^th, 2012. The purpose of this initiative is to promote safe and
responsible boating practices to the estimated 16 million recreational boaters in Canada while significantly reducing
boating-related fatalities.

Of particular emphasis this year is a move to strike at the troubling
statistic that, while boating-related fatalities have trended downwards
over the last 20 years, people not wearing their lifejackets continues
to be a contributing factor in 80% of drownings.

This statistic combined with findings that men are more than 4 times
more likely to drown than women led the CSBC and the Lifesaving Society
to take the innovative approach to undertake a comprehensive research
project amongst women to determine if talking to them might effectively
influence their husbands to wear their lifejackets.

The quantitative research, conducted by Gadd Research Inc. with
approximately 200 women across Canada identified the high potential to
reach women and ultimately their husbands and partners by linking the
wearing of inflatable lifejackets as a way to save 100 lives on the
water each year.    A “fire alarm” poster was developed showing an
emergency pull cord with the phrase “Pull in case of drowning” and a
call to go to www.smartboater.ca to learn more about the various inflatable models available.

The poster was found to have strong communication ability, a strong
emotional resonance, capturing and holding the attention of the study
participants and revealed high potential to get women to talk to their
husbands and partners about the importance of wearing a lifejacket. It
will be launched just before Safe Boating Awareness Week and will be
present in malls in Ontario, Alberta, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
Newfoundland and Manitoba. Smaller posters will be available for
display in marinas and community centres across Canada. The campaign is
supported by the Lifesaving Saving Society and Pattison Advertising.
The Smartboater.ca website has also been revamped to include a section
for women “Smart Boater Women” in which boating safety information for
women and their families can be found.

Additional Information and Activities Related to North American Safe
Boating Awareness Week

To further emphasize the importance of wearing lifejackets, boating
safety educators, marine enforcement officials, politicians, media and
the general public will gather to beat last year’s World Record
Lifejacket event called Ready, Set, Wear It (RSWI).  On May 19th across North America and in other countries around the
world, all participants will inflate their inflatable lifejackets or
don their inherently buoyant lifejackets and record their individual
events to prove the size of the initiative and break last year’s World
Record of 1,685 participants.  The purpose of this event is to raise
public awareness of the new styles of lifejackets, both inflatable and
inherently buoyant, and about general boating safety practices.  Click
on the Ready Set Wear It link within the www.smartboater.ca website to register a RSWI event or to find an existing event close to
you.

In addition to the importance of wearing a lifejacket, this year the
Safe Boating Awareness Week campaign will deliver the following key
boating safety-related messages:

• Don’t drink and boat
• Take a boating safety course
• Be prepared before casting off – both you and your vessel
• Understand and take precautions against Cold Water Immersion

Short stories to use as discrete articles or in newspaper supplements,
30-second audio PSAs for Radio and video PSAs for Television to support
these key messages are available on the www.csbc.ca website for easy download and use free of charge.  Beta quality is also
available up request.

This initiative is promoted by the Canadian Safe Boating Council (CSBC),
a registered charity, and its members and partners from all areas of
the marine community. It is made possible through support of Transport
Canada’s Office of Boating Safety.  The goal is to ensure that the millions of Canadians who head out on the
waters in canoes and kayaks, sailboards and sailboats, fishing boats,
personal watercraft, power boats and cruisers are equipped with the
knowledge for a safe day on the water.

Please visit www.smartboater.ca and www.csbc.ca for further information.