Proclamation 4185—National Safe Boating Week, 1973

As more and more Americans in all parts of our Nation turn to boating as a leisure time activity, we need to give increasing attention to the safety requirements of the millions who participate in this healthy, challenging outdoor sport.

Aware of this need, the Congress approved a joint resolution on June 4, 1958 (72 Stat. 179) requesting that the President proclaim an annual National Safe Boating week during the week including July 4th of each year.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the week beginning July 1, 1973, as National Safe Boating Week.

I urge all Americans who use our waterways to take advantage of the numerous boating safety courses offered by governmental and private organizations to help make their stay afloat as safe as it is enjoyable. These courses, sponsored by the United States Coast Guard, the Coast Guard Auxiliary, the United States Power Squadrons, the American Red Cross and various State agencies, provide the average citizen with the information needed for the safe operation of recreational boats. I particularly urge the novice and the occasional boatman, the one who operates a small boat on only a few weekends of the year, to consider his own and his family's safety and to be prepared for the unexpected by taking advantage of the sound safety information such courses offer.

I also invite the Governors of the States, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa, and the Commissioner of the District of Columbia to provide for the observance of this week.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-ninth day of January, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred ninety-seventh.

RICHARD NIXON