What affects the risk of recreational craft users? – A literature review

Annually, many incidents and accidents with recreational craft are occurring. They result in fatalities, major injuries, and severe material damages. However, there is no full overview of how many incidents and accidents occur and the factors leading to these accidents. The Norwegian Maritime Authority (NMA) together with key stakeholders identified the need for more comprehensive collection and analysis of incidents, accidents and associated risk factors. To address the issue an integrated data platform for recreational craft accidents, including a risk module to analyse and predict areas with high accident rates, is under development. This paper summarizes the preliminary findings from a literature study on the risk factors associated with accidents and their outcomes with recreational craft at sea. In total 59 articles were reviewed published in the period between 2001 and 2021, of which 35 were describing relevant risk factors. These articles cover a range of statistics and accidents reports on recreational craft. The most often mentioned risk factors relate to wear of personal flotation devices, craft type and length, and weather conditions. The most detailed risk factors described in the literature are related to the recreational craft users involved in accidents. The results of this literature study will give input to the development of the data platform on recreational craft accidents in Norway.