WASHINGTON -- Drinking and boating, a sometimes deadly combination, needs to be taken as seriously as drinking and driving, law enforcement authorities say.

Drinking was involved in nearly a quarter of boating fatalities from 2001 to 2005, according to a Gannett News Service analysis of Coast Guard data.

"You don't do anyone a favor just sending a drunken boater home. You arrest them and get the boat off the water just like you would a drunken driver and their car," said Lt. Creig Grey, marine safety and education supervisor for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

Almost 44 percent of boaters said alcohol was served some of the times they were afloat, according to a 2002 survey conducted for the Coast Guard.

States have been lowering the threshold for drunken boating from a .10 percent blood alcohol level to .08 percent to align it with drunken driving standards. Since 2000, 27 states joined others that changed to the lower level, leaving five states at the higher level.

That means three beers over a few hours are about the limit for an average-sized boater. And the Coast Guard fervently warns: One is too many.

"It's just a no-brainer to lower it," said Susan Hager, boating safety coordinator with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

A bill to lower the maximum blood-alcohol level for boaters recently failed in Iowa's Legislature but is expected to be reintroduced.

"You have a boater who's close to the limit on the water who gets out, hitches his boat up and drives off," Hager said. "Now he's all of a sudden legally intoxicated by driving standards because he's on the road where they're lower. And he's on the road with a 3,000-pound trailer behind him. I mean how are you getting home from the lake?"

In many ways, boats are more difficult to control than cars. Few boats turn or brake quickly. And boaters typically aren't on the water every day keeping their skills sharp.

Then there are the elements.

"When boating, unlike driving, you're exposed," said Gail Kulp, education director with the National Association of State Boating Law Administrators. "You've got the sun off the water and the wind, which can intensify the effects of alcohol."

Although drunken boating is still a problem, lawyers who specialize in such cases say law enforcement's message is getting through.

"There's no question that there's much more awareness about drunken boating now, and I say that as an attorney and a boater," said Andrew Alpert, a Maryland attorney who spends his free time plying the Chesapeake Bay.

Drunken boating can become an "aggravating factor" in court for people previously convicted of driving while intoxicated, and vice versa - evidence that surf and turf are now legally one.

Consider the case of Virginian Mark de Tournillon, who was charged in a fatal drunken boating accident in the summer of 2005. He was initially released on bail, but that was revoked when the judge discovered he had been charged with drunken driving in Florida.

Originally published Friday, June 1, 2007