The Sea Tow Foundation is showcasing the winners of the 2023 National Boating Safety Awards via individualized blog posts that answer specific questions posted to each winning company.

Garmin won the 2023 National Boating Safety Award in the category of Top Gear & Equipment Manufacturer.

1. What inspired your company to promote boating safety?
   
   Many people think that safe boating just means wearing a life jacket (which is important), but there are so many additional ways to ensure you have an enjoyable – and safe – day out on the water. Garmin’s mission is to create products that are an essential part of our customers’ lives, which includes boating and fishing. From up-to-date mapping to sonar technology, marine radars, AIS and VHF equipment to inReach satellite communicators, Garmin products can help make the difference between a good and bad day on the water, and we’re passionate about ensuring our customers know how to use their electronics so they can make the most out of doing what we all love so much – enjoying the water.
   
   
2. What partnerships, media coverage and/or opportunities have you received as a result of winning the award?
   
   Since collaborating with The Qualified Captain to raise awareness for boating safety last year, we have continued to strengthen our partnership with them and their platform. What started as a place to highlight on-the-water incidents that could have been avoided has turned into a platform for boating safety education and we are proud to continue collaborating with them to expose more people to tips on how to make the most of their time spent on the water.

It was also great to see many consumer and trade media outlets cover the awards program, which hopefully generates more boating safety content and commentary on their various news platforms.

3. What was a key takeaway you received as a result of working on this project or campaign?
   
   It’s rewarding to see the interest and engagement in safe boating content increase from year to year – it means we’re reaching more boaters and anglers and hopefully making our waters safer for everyone. We were also thrilled to learn that the Sea Tow Foundation received a record-breaking number of entries to their Safety Awards program in 2023 – the more people promoting boating safety, the better! It’s great to see so many companies and brands from all facets of the industry coming together to raise awareness of something that will impact generations of boaters for years to come.
   
   
4. Is your company working on any future boating safety projects or campaigns? If so, is there anything you can share about what you’re planning to do?
   
   

We recently issued a report outlining Garmin inReach SOS data from 2023, which showed that boating was the fourth highest activity people were doing when they triggered an SOS. The top reasons Garmin customers are triggering an SOS is for injury or an accident, which validates our efforts to promote safer boating practices for anyone leaving the dock. As we look ahead, we remain committed to creating purposeful, informative content, media outreach, education and more for a stronger and safer community of boaters. 

This year, we are showcasing each winner of the National Boating Industry Safety Awards via an individualized blog that answers questions posed to each winner. This will allow our readers to get to know each of the winners and see some of their winning materials, too.

Our first Q&A blog comes to us from The Qualified Captain, a social media brand followed by over 980,000 people on Instagram making them the largest boating-related social media influencer. Most people don’t know that Aaron Stasiak is the man behind The Qualified Captain and he has provided his answers to these questions for us.

1. Congratulations on winning the National Boating Industry Safety Award! Can you please describe your winning entry for our audience?
   
   Thank you! We won the Social Media Boating Safety Influencer award. With our big popularity on social media, we utilize our following to promote boating safety tips.
   
   

2. How does winning this award help The Qualified Captain? What partnerships, media coverage or opportunities have you gotten because of it?
   
   This award helped us by showing our fans that we really do care about our fellow mariners, and that boating safety is a major concern of ours. If we can utilize our platform to remind people what can happen on the water, then we will do whatever it takes to keep the message going. We have partnered with a few big companies that have key tools on the market that can help you be safer on the water. We promote those products, and as a result, have received a lot of good social media coverage for doing so.
   
   
   
3. What inspired you to promote boating safety?
   
   I got inspired to do this by noticing how common the easily preventable mistakes were being made. We want to lower the number of accidents, and deaths on the water.
   
   
   
   
4. Did you set goals and objectives when you started The Qualified Captain? If so, what were they and did you meet those goals and objectives?
   
   Our goal for the past couple years is to do whatever it takes to remind people of the potential dangers of being on the water, and how to prevent common mistakes. We did so by sharing the sad but true stories, promoting new helpful equipment, explaining the benefits of having a Sea Tow membership, sharing boat education resources, and offering our trauma kits (shown above in the photo).  Knowing that we are the most popular influencer on social media in this industry, I felt like it was my obligation to do whatever we can to promote boating safety. We share stories, explain new regulations, and educate new boaters. We also saw a number of deaths on the water in the past 12 months. I wouldn't call these goals, but just a daily duty that we provide. An example of an educational video that we've produced is included below:
   
   

5. Are you working on any future boating safety projects or campaigns? If so, is there anything you can share about what you’re planning to do?
   
   Yes! We have a really sad but important story from a young boy who witnessed a death on the water. We are teaming up with him, and a few other partners to create a very good non-profit that will help provide just one simple piece of equipment to all local docks, waterways, and boat ramps that could help save a life. Stay tuned.
   
   Congratulations again to The Qualified Captain on winning the 2022 National Boating Industry Safety Award as the top Social Media Boating Safety Influencer! You can also check out the video of him accepting the award back in October below.