Mary,
The problem with gathering statistics is that there are so many ways to interpret the information. How many fatalities, in how many hours of catamaran sailing, compared to how many other sailboats, power boats, water skiers, surfers, divers, and so on. You could make the numbers say whatever you wanted. I don't think life insurance companies increase their fees or deny coverage to sailors but they do for SCUBA divers and small plane pilots. They are the ones who make their living on knowing what is dangerous and what is not.
Most of my experience has been with White Water Kayaking in West Virginia. Between 1995 and 1997 all commercial rafting companies were asked to report fatal and non-fatal injuries. It was very difficult to compare data on different rivers because the conditions were so varied. We did find commonalities in types of injuries. The most common was facial injuries, usually after bailing out in a rapid and getting hit by the boat. People between 20 and 29 had more injuries than those over 30. The most telling was of course experience with the boat. Those with less than 20 hours experience were the more likely to die in circumstances where boaters with greater than 100 hours of experience reported a 'near miss' or suffered injury but lived. (One of those near misses was mine)
I mention this study because I think it would be similar in catamarans. The conditions would make the data difficult to compare but if you look at WHO gets in serious trouble, it is directly related to experience more than conditions. For instance, a very inexperienced sailor might assume too much about a motor boat giving them way. It might be interesting to see what injuries are common to the sport. From what I am reading it seems to be legs and in particular knees. What is your feeling?
Also...men were 14 times more likely than womento have a fatal injury but, like catamaran sailing, I would guess that has much more to do with who is participating in the sport. There aren't very many women kayaking either.
