CG66 and RYA

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NPMR

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At the Boat Show I asked the Coastguard people if it was true that their CG66 scheme was now defunct.

The reply was affirmative and that we need to re-register, the same information, with the RYA, who now hold the franchise or contract. They were not able to migrate the data across.

In case you had not heard?
 
This new system, as I understand it, relies on a mobile signal.
There are huge tracts of the Scottish West coast where no signal on any network is available. Some of them are even reasonably close to "civilisation", but shadowed from a signal by headlands etc.
The Safetrx system apparently continues to store GPS data while it's lost a mobile phone signal, then when a signal is acquired again, it supposedly catches up. But the period of loss of signal can be appreciable in west Scotland, long enough that if someone were actually monitoring this ashore, a boat might appear to have disappeared.
The mobile networks, and Offcom maintain maps of mobile signal coverage, but these are designed largely for land coverage, and are unreliable for marine locations, though appear to show some sea areas.
It will be interesting to see how this works out.
 
MM5AHO said:
This new system, as I understand it, relies on a mobile signal.
There are huge tracts of the Scottish West coast where no signal on any network is available. Some of them are even reasonably close to "civilisation", but shadowed from a signal by headlands etc.
The Safetrx system apparently continues to store GPS data while it's lost a mobile phone signal, then when a signal is acquired again, it supposedly catches up. But the period of loss of signal can be appreciable in west Scotland, long enough that if someone were actually monitoring this ashore, a boat might appear to have disappeared.
The mobile networks, and Offcom maintain maps of mobile signal coverage, but these are designed largely for land coverage, and are unreliable for marine locations, though appear to show some sea areas.
It will be interesting to see how this works out.
Click to expand...

But that only affects the optional, supplementary 'tracking' function, surely? CG66 never knew where you were, and the database that replaces the CG66 one remains effective whether it knows where you are or not.

Send an SOS by VHF, EPIRB Sat Phone, or whatever, and your details will be as available to CG as they were before (if you've registered and updated them!)
 
MM5AHO said:
This new system, as I understand it, relies on a mobile signal.
Click to expand...

You don't fully understand it.

Part of the new system is a tracking and/or alerting app with various potential problems as discussed in the other thread. However, there's absolutely no need to use this and you can register your details in the database via a straightforward web page. The database is then accessible to the Coastguard just as CG66 was. It holds similar details to CG66 and is not about monitoring or reporting your position or raising the alarm, rather it's something the Coastguard can refer to if the alarm is ever raised by whatever means.

I've registered my details (and it's useful to be able to update them easily should I need to, rather than the clunky manual CG66 process done as-and-when by individual watch officers when they had a few minutes spare) but I don't intend to ever download the app.

Pete
 
Part..... you can register your details in the database via a straightforward web page.
Pete[/QUOTE]
Wish I could find a straightforward web page for this. The only one I found asks me for details of my vehicle.

(Actually, I quite liked talking to the watch officers, convinced me that someone was actually there.:))
 
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