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Office of Boating Safety - The Safe Boating Guide

Table of Contents

Your guide to safe boating

Common sense and maximizing your personal safety

• Don’t cruise with booze
• Whose responsibility is safe boating?
• Take a boating safety course

Relevant laws that apply to pleasure craft

• Small Vessel Regulations
• Collision Regulations
• Canada Shipping Act
• Boating Restriction Regulations
• Charts and Nautical Publications Regulations
• Navigation Safety Regulations
• Criminal Code of Canada
• Competency of Operators Pleasure Craft Regulations
• Other regulations
• Boating law enforcement

Inspecting your pleasure craft

• Pleasure Craft Courtesy Checks
• Pre-departure checklists

Making and filing sail plans

• Avoiding specific hazards
• Monitoring the weather
• Using nautical charts

Emergency! What are you going to do?

• Marine radio communications
• Marine VHF radio and GPS
• Global Positioning System (GPS)
• Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB)
• Cellphones and *16
• Distress signals
• Overboard recovery techniques
• Surviving in cold water

Fuel safety and carbon monoxide awareness

• Engine start-up
• Fuel-burning appliances
• Ignition protection
• Fuelling procedures

Pleasure craft and pleasure craft activities

• Personal watercraft operators
• Kayakers
• Anglers and hunters

Construction Standards for Small Vessels

• Canadian compliance labels
• Hull identification number (HIN)
• Overloading your boat

Minimum required equipment

• Sailboards
• Paddleboats and watercycles less than 6 m (19’8”) in length
• Canoes, kayaks, rowboats and rowing shells less than 6 m (19’8”) in length
• Unpowered pleasure craft less than 6 m (19’8”) in length
• Personal watercraft (PWC)
• Powered pleasure craft less than 6 m (19’8”) in length
• Pleasure craft greater than 6 m (19’8”) in length but no greater than 8 m (26’3”) in length
• Pleasure craft greater than 8 m (26’3”) in length but no greater than 12 m (39’4”) in length
• Pleasure craft greater than 12 m (39’4”) in length but no greater than 20 m (65’7”) in length

Specific requirements for pleasure craft involved in competition

• Alternative equipment for racing canoes, racing kayaks and rowing shells
• Alternative equipment for racing-type pleasure craft

Personal protection equipment

• Lifejackets
• Personal flotation devices (PFDs)
• Keeping kids afloat
• Labels
• Proper care of your flotation device
• It won’t work if you don’t wear it
• Buoyant heaving lines
• Lifebuoys
• Reboarding devices

Boat safety equipment

• Manual propelling device
• Bailers and manual water pumps
• Anchors
• Portable fire extinguishers
• Reacting to a fire

Distress equipment

• Watertight flashlights
• Distress flares

Navigation equipment

• Sound-signalling devices
• Sound-signalling appliances
• Navigation lights
• Radar reflectors

Towing

• Charts and publications 
• Suggested items to take on board
• Tool kits and spare parts
• First aid kit

Proper documentation

• Licensing your pleasure craft
• New pleasure craft?
• Transferring ownership
• Registering your pleasure craft

Sharing waterways

• Rules of the road
• Right-of-way rules
• Maintaining a proper lookout and avoiding a collision
• Be aware and be considerate
• Reduce engine noise
• Keep your distance from divers below the surface
• Steer clear of shipping lanes
• Operate at a safe speed
• Waterskiing and other towing activities
• Respect and protect the aquatic environment

Boating restrictions

• Reading a restriction sign
• Province-wide shore-line speed restrictions

Safety in historic canals and locks

• Passage through a lock
• Safety around dams

Quick reference cards

• Sail plan
• The Canadian Aids to Navigation System
• Operating rules
• Distress signals

Contact information

• Regional Transport Canada Centres
• Marine and Air Search and Rescue emergency telephone numbers 
• Charts, tide and current tables and more
• Marine weather forecasts
• Marine publications
• Pleasure craft licensing

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