Airline pilots can command dozens of flights every month, sometimes multiple times per day on the same aircraft. And yet they physically and methodically go through a pre-flight checklist every single time.

As responsible boaters, we can all take a lesson from their actions. In this Mercury Quick Tip, we’ll give you a few ideas of items to put on your personal pre-boating checklist. The items featured include some you’ve certainly thought of – PFDs and an anchor, for instance – and some you might not have, like spare fuses and a manual bilge pump. Even if you absolutely know you have all these items on board, you should still make a checklist and follow it before every trip, just to ensure nothing has been damaged or borrowed.

Why should you take a few extra minutes to double check things you know are fine? Well, pilots do it every day, and major mechanical and safety incidents on commercial flights are incredibly rare. You can bet that’s no coincidence.