Ebbie, I live in Newcastle NSW Australia which is a coastal and harbour city with beautiful beaches. There is a lot of boating activity here and a high percentage of private boating has alcohol as a factor. On the other side of the story, we also have an excellent marine policing unit which seems to maintain good standards of behaviour on the water, most of the time. There are accidents and tragedies, but if not for the marine police there would be a lot more, I think.

There are also Australian advertising campaigns to remind boating people to use their life jackets.