Boating enthusiasts can look forward to the fourth annual Huntington Safe Boating Week kicking off Saturday, with activities through Friday, May 27.

The Waterfront Festival and Nautical Market will be held Sunday, May 22 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Mill Dam Park in Halesite.

The festival will feature vendors offering used and new marine equipment, nautical home décor and antiques and fishing gear, along with boat dealers, artists and craftsmen, amusements for children, food and live music.

Highlights of the week include free vessel inspections, a free eight-hour New York State Boating Safety course, and free lectures, seminars and kayak and paddleboard safety classes. The events will be held at various locations around town.

“The week will have something for just about everyone,” said Jackie Martin, executive officer of the Greater Huntington Council of Yacht and Boating Clubs, which organized the event along with Huntington Town officials, the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary and other groups.

“The boating council will reimburse those agencies who are teaching classes for the printed materials and the cost of the tuition, and that’s a really big positive change and that’s something we set out to do when we came up with this concept,” Martin said.

This local boating safety week was launched in the aftermath of the July Fourth 2012 Oyster Bay boating accident that left three children dead.

“It was quite sobering to everybody that in an instant three lives could be taken and we wanted to be proactive about it,” Martin said.

The Huntington-based council represents 22 clubs with boating and waterfront interests.

For more information, and event locations, go to huntingtonsafeboatingweek.com.

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