The more time you spend on the water throughout your life, the more likely you are to help or be helped by other boaters, both power and sail.

As far as actually saving lives, in most cases it is very difficult to know that. When something goes wrong on the water, whether you run out of gasoline or start taking on water or capsize, it may not necessarily seem like a life-threatening situation at the time, but it could very easily turn into one.

So, "potentially" sailors have saved many lives just by going to the aid of others in distress.