Greg, I expect none who frequent this forum to pass away becouse of sailing catamarans. Fatalities are not very common, and I suppose most people on this forum are conscious about potenial problems. I would rate sailing catamarans as a very low risk sport. It's a technical sport, so one needs to take care of equipment and understand the working environment (wind and water), but I definately view this sport as safe.
Some do press the limits, like going on offshore trips on small cats. Those guys usually know what they are doing and take every precaution possible.
I know of only three fatal accidents from sailing cats over the last years. Johannes Haupl, Sven Schang and now this 11 year old girl. There has probably been many close calls, but we have no system for collecting those. Perhaps we should make an online database to collect those? In rock climbing, where death rate is rather high if you goof up, we have a system for collecting information about all accidents and potential accidents.
I think that is all correct Rolf. I agree 100%. Here is where I am going with this.......
I am trying to tie into an earlier thread of how to promote the sport to others and I think it could be said that this IS a very safe sport when compared to the "activities/sports" here in the States that are stealing away our potential future sailors like JETSKI'S and maybe even ocean kayaking. I hear of one or two deaths or serious injuries every week during the summer months from those activites. I never hear of sailing deaths or serious injuries (around here at least). In my business, we have a statistic we toss around quite often that 80% of leisure activity decisions for the family are determined by the female. Couple that stat with womens # 1 and # 2 concerns of SAFETY and CLEANLINESS (guess why Disney is so popular) and maybe catamaraning should be promoted to WOMEN as a clean, safe sport and then slip in the spitfire video to the kids and dads to promote the speed!
Just my 2 cents worth....
