Yesterday the Coast Guard airlifted a teenage boy from a sailboat 125 miles offshore, off Cape Cod, after the boy began to suffer the effects of dehydration. He was taken to a hospital for medical treatment.

Although the Coast Guard report did not specify the cause of his dehydration, it almost certainly resulted, as it usually does on a boat, from repeated bouts of vomiting due to seasickness.

If you’re not sure whether you or a crew member may experience seasickness when conditions get rough, don’t take chances. Use a remedy to prevent seasickness if possible. This may mean you have to experiment with different remedies to learn which works best for you.

Dehydration can become a medical emergency. Learn what symptoms to watch for.

This summer seems to be starting off badly in terms of boating accidents and fatalities. Just in the last week there have been multiple reports of sailors being rescued, or dying, after falling off their boat.

In Florida, a man fell overboard not wearing a life jacket and is fortunate that someone spotted him and alerted the Coast Guard, which was able to reach him within 20 minutes to effect a rescue.

Two people fell off a sailboat in Lake Michigan, in a harbor just off Chicago, where the winds were gusting 20-30. Another boater rescued one, and the other was pulled out by the Chicago Police Marine Unit and taken to a hospital, where he died shortly after, most likely as a direct or indirect result of the cold water.

We always think it won’t happen to us. And it so often happens in situations not involving an emergency or weather extreme—often at the most routine of times. Last summer in a small New England town a few miles from my own, a man was climbing from his dinghy onto his moored sailboat in the harbor when he slipped and went into the water. Not wearing a PFD. His wife watched from the porch of their yacht club a quarter mile away as he rowed out, but didn’t see him fall in—just noticed the dinghy drifting free a few minutes later on the tidal current that had swept him away from the sailboat. In cold water you don’t have much time. He drowned. It feels especially tragic to think of his wife watching, so nearby, on a calm summer day.

We all know we should wear our PFDs whenever there’s any chance at all of mishap. And in many circumstances we should also wear a safety harness and tether to keep us on the boat. It’s for each of to think about when we do, and when we don’t, and what can happen.

It’s happened again—another sailing accident that should serve as a reminder to us all to be more careful out there on the water.

New England’s been deluged by an early-summer nor’easter that’s brought many days of rain, fog, gloom, and gusty winds. The weather makes many of us antsy, waiting for good days to sail, and sometimes when we decide to break out the foul weather gear and do it anyway, we’re still feeling a little frantic. Maybe that’s what was happening on the J24 racing a couple days ago off Salem, Mass. Not one but two men on the same boat were struck in the head by the boom, one after the other. Both were experienced sailors. Both suffered head injuries and had to be treated at the hospital.

Keeping an eye on the boom when tacking and gybing—and whenever shifting or gusting winds raise the risk of an accidental gybe—is one of the first things sailors learn. Still, it happens. You get caught up in the race or preoccupied with other thoughts, and the unthinkable happens and your head is struck by a flying heavy piece of metal whose force can be considerable—and often lethal. Fortunately both these men recovered from their injuries.

But we’re not all so lucky all the time. Keep an eye out, folks!

It’s not too late to plan to get out on the water tomorrow and sail the longest day of the summer. The “Summer Sailstice” organization makes it easy to find sailing events in your area though a geographical search on their website. Exciting things are happening with sailors everywhere. Crew on someone’s boat, find a flotilla to join in your own boat, or celebrate shoreside with sailors gathering at a favorite waterside pub.

And if you happen to be a dad, this year’s calendar gives you double cause to celebrate on the water!