BoatUS Foundation and the National Safe Boating Council have partnered with boating app provider DECKER to allow easy access to loaner life jacket stations. The new pilot program integrates BoatUS Foundation’s over 600 life jacket loaner stations across the nation into the DECKER app, making it easy for boaters to easily search for stations and be alerted when they are near one.
“It’s a great way to find a life jacket loaner if you have unexpected guests aboard,” says BoatUS Foundation program manager Alan Dennison. “We really want to make it easier for families to get the right size life jackets, whether infant, child, teen or adult.”
BoatUS’s loaner database loans out over 140,000 jackets annually, and offers free life jackets at marinas, boat clubs, campgrounds, marinas, firehouses and TowBoatUS companies around the U.S.
“The pilot app project with DECKER and the BoatUS Foundation will help give us an accurate and scalable way to measure the influence of ongoing outreach programs,” adds Peg Phillips, executive director of the National Safe Boating Council: For example, a notification that comes as a gentle reminder of a nearby life jacket loaner site may reinforce or prompt increased life jacket wear by kids and adults.”
Learn more at boatus.org/life-jacket-loaner.
