We studied the characteristics of marine casualties within the area under control of Korea National Maritime Police and leeway of drifting vessel. According to 5 years＇(1995~1999) data of casualties, it was found that the occurrence of casualties by fishing boats ranked the highest and a considerable numbers of casualties took place more than 20 miles off the shore. From a result of field experiment of G/T 50 tons vessel off Busan harbor on Apr. 26~28, 2000, we computed that the linear equation of leeway speed(cm/s) was 1.01×U(U : wind speed in m/s)+11.36 with correlation coefficient between wind speed and leeway speed being 0.252 and we found leeway angle range from +87˚(right) to -78˚(left ) of the downwind direction.