Recreational boat users: essential knowledge and skills

Strategies to promote safety in New Zealand’s recreational boating sector focus on encouraging self-reliance and skipper responsibility through safety awareness and education. This system is flawed because it relies on users knowing the rules, regulations and bylaws, but does not require them to demonstrate such knowledge before taking a craft on the water. This situation is anomalous with the aviation and road sectors. In 2009 we recommended that the Secretary for Transport address this issue. We repeated the recommendation in 2023.