AIS SART

Thanks for all your posts. Just to clarify, I was asking about an AIS SART which is a means of distress alerting, albeit quite short range, and differs from a conventional SART that allows the lifeboat etc to home in on you. They did seem mayb a better option than hoping a glorified laser pointer might be interpreted as a distress signal.

Anyway, I was looking for feedback on practical experience with them and I guess the fact I got none indicates that they are neither in the least in common use nor well understood.
 
lpdsn said:
Thanks for all your posts. Just to clarify, I was asking about an AIS SART which is a means of distress alerting, albeit quite short range, and differs from a conventional SART that allows the lifeboat etc to home in on you. They did seem mayb a better option than hoping a glorified laser pointer might be interpreted as a distress signal.

Anyway, I was looking for feedback on practical experience with them and I guess the fact I got none indicates that they are neither in the least in common use nor well understood.
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I think that they are very new and thus not distributed widely is one of the main reasons. The fishing net locators that I posted about may be more widely but mainly in the far east and not Europe.
 
bitbaltic said:
I think it's about having 'layers' of rescue equipment so that you have redundancy, becasue what you will have available to you depends on the emergency.

Calling for help:
a) Fixed masthead DSC & voice VHF
b) portable DSC & voice VHF
c)EPIRB/PLB

Helping rescuers locate you:
a)Radar SART
b)Flares
c)Personal AIS beacon

Everything plays its part depending on circumstances.
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Yes, i agree. Which is why i think in the OP's case at least the AIS SART would be pointless. He already has a PLB, so i would assume he has VHF DSC on the mothership. If he doesn't have a handheld i think his money would be best spent on a DCS handheld. If he does have a handheld it's hard to see where the AIS SART adds anything of value.
 
How about a personal AIS for in case you go over the side by accident and keeping a telescopic pole in the grab bag to attach it to if you deploy the raft :)
 
lpdsn said:
and differs from a conventional SART that allows the lifeboat etc to home in on you. They did seem mayb a better option than hoping a glorified laser pointer might be interpreted as a distress signal
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They DON'T differ from a Radar SART in purpose, which is why both are called SARTs. Their purpose- as I was perhaps long-windedly trying to explain- IS to allow rescue services to home in on you, NOT primarily to call for help. If that's the way you're looking at it, remember a radar SART will alert a passing vessel to your distress too- as long as it has and is using radar it will see the line of dots on screen, leading to you, just as a passing AIS equipped vessel will see your AIS SART. But the point is this is incidental; you are not targeting the SAR services in the way VHF or a PLB will do. I fear you are looking at the 'calling for help' model of sixty years ago- set off a beacon or start firing flares and hope someone is passing by and looking. The SARSAT system means there are much better ways now, and you have your PLB to do it.
 
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What on earth have they screwed up with the navigation of this site on mobile now? Try to edit a post and it gets deleted no matter what you do!

Effectively, 406 beacons can be immersion activated though, can't they? Provided the requirement for two step triggering of such beacons is fulfilled, which in the case of Cat I float free EPIRBs is achieved by way of the requirement for the beacon to be out of its housing AND immersed in order to activate, the whole process can be automatic.

The majority of Cat II EPIRBs, mine included, will activate when removed from their housing and immersed, but of course will only be out of their housing if you're able to get to them to release them manually.

To answer a general query in this thread, the primary demand for SARTs on smaller craft is for use on Cat 1 and Cat 0 coded small commercial vessels, on which if the EPIRB is float free, a SART is also required. Where the EPIRB is not float free, a SART is not required. The thinking being that a float free EPIRB may release itself and float away on its own prior to the crew having a chance to get hold of it, whilst this is less likely to happen with a non-float free EPIRB. Hence, a float free EPIRB demands a secondary device for final location is carried as the source of the 121.5 homing signal of the EPIRB may be some distance from the casualties, whereas it's more likely that the casualties will have a manually released beacon with them having had to remove it from its cradle manually, so the source of the 121.5 signal will be in the same place as the casualties.

As has already been said, SARTs are not intended as a primary means of distress alerting, but as an aid to SAR services in pinpointing the casualties once in the general vicinity.
 
Simondjuk said:
What on earth have they screwed up with the navigation of this site on mobile now? Try to edit a post and it gets deleted no matter what you do!

Effectively, 406 beacons can be immersion activated though, can't they?
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There are no immersion activated 406 PLBs on the market that I know of, perhaps because the two stages you suggest for EPIRBs would be difficult to apply to bracketless personal devices, and/or because they are sold for land-based adventuring also.
 
bitbaltic said:
There are no immersion activated 406 PLBs on the market that I know of, perhaps because the two stages you suggest for EPIRBs would be difficult to apply to bracketless personal devices, and/or because they are sold for land-based adventuring also.
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Sorry, I think I misunderstood your earlier post. Agreed, water activated 406 PLBs don't exist. Water activated (when released from their housing) 406 EPIRBs do exist. You were talking PLBs and I was thinking EPIRBs.
 
What is needed as I posted earlier is a unit that will alert the vessel that some one is missing overboard. Needed more at night than daytime. An AIS transmitting device sending GPS position and message type 14. This can be picked up by the vessel the MOB fell off and any other vessels in the area. And a PLB function that can be set off by the MOB if no rescue has come.

I have a MOB alarm system to tell the crew that some one has gone overboard and a HH DSC VHF with GPS internal so the person in the water can make a emergency DSC call to all ships in the area including the vessel they fell off. I still need the PLB function but I am waiting for a combined unit at a reasonable cost.
 
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