Witnesses asked to speak up
The RNLI wants to learn more from those involved in accidents or close shaves
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is calling on motorboaters who have experienced or witnessed a serious incident to share their experiences.
Between 2011 and 2015, 41 people died while motorboating around the UK according to the RNLI, whose lifeboat crews launched 1,079 times to rescue motorboaters in 2015 alone.
The RNLI is aiming to halve the number of accidental coastal deaths by 2024 and is running a range of drowning prevention programmes. To help develop these initiatives, the RNLI has commissioned Natcen Social Research (an independent research organisation) to conduct new research to better understand serious coastal incidents, including those which resulted in self-rescue, rescue, or proved fatal.
The research will involve carrying out interviews with survivors and witnesses of coastal water-related incidents to help the RNLI understand more about how potentially lifethreatening situations arise, and what can be done to avoid them.
Participants must be aged 18 or over and must have witnessed or experienced an incident at sea or on the coast where they felt someone’s life was at risk or a life was lost. Natcen would like to speak with people who have experienced and/or seen an incident between 2012 and 2016 in the UK and Republic of Ireland.
The findings will be published later this year and the report will be made publicly available on both the RNLI and Natcen websites.
For more information about the accident-prevention project and how you may be able to contribute to this research, visit the Natcen website at www.natcen.ac.uk.
Forty-one people died while motorboating around the UK between 2011 and 2015