EPRIB, PLB or SPOT GEN3 Tracker?

[GHA]

I hadn't realised there had been some some positive results from all the problems that came up. Can you point me in the direction of what are currently considered safe tethers? It looked to me as though just about all tethers were liable to the problems of unclipping, or bending, or webbing snapping, and I havn't seen anything substantially different in design in the chandlers.

A fair bit about the bad ones, also looking to climbing resources is worth a look. People have been trusting their lives to a couple a carabiners & a lanyard for decades Chandlers may not always be the best place to buy , single handing if it's blowing I wear a lightweight climbing harness & grigri lanyard 24/7. Steel carabiners last fine if given a quick wash in fresh water after use and little dab of oil now and again.

V quick google. Some links will no doubt be behind pay walls...
https://www.practical-sailor.com/searchresults/index.html?q=tether
https://www.morganscloud.com/search-results/?q=tether

 

[Dockhead]

They do different things.
I have an older SPOT tracker, not the lates. It is great for letting people know where you are and that you are OK. In emergencies, SPOT does not alert the GMDSS system immediately. The alert goes to the commercial organisation and then they alert the authorities.

My choice was not either / or. When offshore, especially solo, I have a PLB on my person at all times. I use the SPOT for leaving the breadcrumb trail so family and friends can follow, and could be used as a backup distress signal in an emergency.

If I were only going to choose one, it would be a PLB. The other features of SPOT are nice to have, but if the s hits the fan, I want a purpose-made emergency beacon.

And I would choose PLB over EPIRB (if I could only get one). I think the risk of going over the side is greater than the risk of total loss, and unless you are crossing an ocean the 24 hours that a PLB will transmit (I'm sure it would be more, but 24 hours is the minimum) will be enough for rescue services to find you. In any situation you would activate an EPIRB, you could activate a PLB instead.

Yes, you need to keep the PLB upright, which might be difficult in the water - especially for extended periods - but for me it is the best compromise of price, usability (i.e. having it when you need it) and performance (according to the minimum standards).

If crossing oceans, I might go for an EPIRB first. But if sailing coastally or across the channel, my order of preference would be
- PLB
- SPOT
- EPIRB (after a lot of other equipment)

What he said!

But I would go a little further than that -- I wouldn't use Spot at all. This uses the Globalstar constellation (anybody want to buy a Globalstar phone, cheap?). Much better are the Delorme and Yellow Brick devices which use Iridium, and which offer two way communication. Or an Iridium Go! which is what I used in the Arctic last year.

None of these should be considered primary distress signalling. Obviously they are better than nothing, but the risk of getting no response, and the risk of a greatly delayed response, is much higher than with a proper GMDSS device like a PLB or EPIRB.

PLB and EPIRB do exactly the same thing, but the PLB can be kept on your person at all times (hence "Personal" Locator
Beacon).

I have always kept a PLB in my lifejacket, for years, and keep an EPIRB on the ship, but EPIRB is probably not needed if you have a PLB and don't venture more than a couple hundred miles offshore.

Not mentioned in this discussion is a MOB beacon. I think these devices probably save more sailors than anything else. These solve the crucial problem of the mother ship's finding the victim immediately -- this is not a problem a PLB will solve, since the mother ship receives no signal, only SAR services, and that with some delay.

Probably useless for a single hander except in crowded waters, but I still think every life jacket should have one of these. I was an early adopter of these and still have one of the original dildo-shaped McMurdo ones, just upgraded recently to the incredibly compact Ocean Signal MOB1 one, which fits inside your life jacket and is automatically activated when the jacket inflates. This device not only provides an AIS signal which the mother ship (and nearby vessels) can use to track the victim, but it sends out a DSC alert which will sound a loud alarm.

If I could only have ONE of all these devices, it would be the MOB1. But they are not substitutes for each other, so better to have all of them. The next most important thing I believe is a PLB.

 

[lw395]

....

Not mentioned in this discussion is a MOB beacon. I think these devices probably save more sailors than anything else. These solve the crucial problem of the mother ship's finding the victim immediately -- this is not a problem a PLB will solve, since the mother ship receives no signal, only SAR services, and that with some delay.
....

Nothing to stop the mother ship receiving the 121.5MHz homing signal from the PLB.

An AIS MOB beacon is another option, as used by divers who are overboard voluntarily, they don't want the coastguard alerted, but they still like an aid to being found quickly.

 

[Dockhead]

Nothing to stop the mother ship receiving the 121.5MHz homing signal from the PLB.

An AIS MOB beacon is another option, as used by divers who are overboard voluntarily, they don't want the coastguard alerted, but they still like an aid to being found quickly.

Do you know anyone who has a direction-finding 121.5mhz receiver on board? Well, you know one, and probably only one -- that would be me Would you like to buy it?

Of course in a pinch that's better than nothing, but having the exact location of the casualty on your plotter, as opposed to knowing the general direction of the casualty once you've rousted the DF homing receiver out of its locker and got it rigged up, might often make the difference between life and death, in our cold waters.

 

[lw395]

OTOH, if your DF receiver was permanently installed and good to go, you might be heading in the right direction before the casualty's GPS receiver has got through its cold start.
But TBH the only boat I've been on, (other than an RNLI or Navy vessel) with 121.5 DF capability was before GPS PLBs were readily available.
Which is the problem, it's all legacy driven.

 

[Benny257]

For single handed sailing. Assuming out of contact for a few days a time, making some reasonable length crossings. Which would you have?

My EPIRB is out of battery and its going to cost £200 'ish for a new one. Thinking aloud, it was fine when I had a crew, but if I go overboard it is not going to help me to call for help. That leads towards a PLB that I can keep on my LJ. Then I saw SPOT GEN3 with its emergency button. People could track me as well as I can call for help.

Which would you invest in.

p.s I WILL have a liferaft onboard too.

I used to have a Spot, but always thought of it as primarily intended for land based activities where your rescue position is fixed. So if you break your leg in a remote spot on the South Island of New Zealand, or are lost in a desert it's fine. It also allows people to track you. It's great for backpacking, mountain biking etc. However, unless the design has changed, it does not have a homing beacon and will only relay the position of activation of the beacon. It also requires a subscription.

If you fall overboard, it is likely that you will drift several miles from the point where you activate the beacon. It is likely that you could be in the water for some time before help is in the area and in that time you could have easily drifted several miles from your original position.

Most PLBs have a homing beacon to allow the rescuer to pinpoint your location if you have drifted. PLBs also use the COSPASS-SARSAT satellite system which is state backed and therefore does not require subscription. The response service also differs and I had some concerns about Spots rescue co-ordination system being provided by a private organisation (GEOS).

Also worth looking at the Garmin InReach, but this uses similar technologies to Spot and therefore has similar limitations.

 

[ZoeImogen]

Not mentioned in this discussion is a MOB beacon. I think these devices probably save more sailors than anything else. These solve the crucial problem of the mother ship's finding the victim immediately -- this is not a problem a PLB will solve, since the mother ship receives no signal, only SAR services, and that with some delay.

Probably useless for a single hander except in crowded waters, but I still think every life jacket should have one of these. I was an early adopter of these and still have one of the original dildo-shaped McMurdo ones, just upgraded recently to the incredibly compact Ocean Signal MOB1 one, which fits inside your life jacket and is automatically activated when the jacket inflates. This device not only provides an AIS signal which the mother ship (and nearby vessels) can use to track the victim, but it sends out a DSC alert which will sound a loud alarm.

There was a false activation of an AIS MOB in the Solent a couple of days ago, and we were not the only vessel to go and investigate so they certainly work. I'd be reasonably confident of being picked up by someone within about 15 minutes if I set one off in busy waters. Other half has the AIS one (I have a PLB as I also go kayaking) but didn't have much luck getting it set up to go off automatically if the lifejacket inflates. Seems to depend on the lifejacket design, something to bear in mind if buying one.

 

[maby]

I'm having a bit of difficulty navigating the SPOT price list, but I get the impression that it works out quite expensive to own. The initial purchase price of the device seems to be approaching that of a moderate PLB, but it then requires a service plan costing $199.99 per annum - the cost of another decent PLB. You probably do not need the "Extreme Tracking" at another $99.99 per year, but the small print seems to indicate that they will add on a further $24.99 per year for "Network Maintenance".

 

[maby]

There was a false activation of an AIS MOB in the Solent a couple of days ago, and we were not the only vessel to go and investigate so they certainly work. I'd be reasonably confident of being picked up by someone within about 15 minutes if I set one off in busy waters. Other half has the AIS one (I have a PLB as I also go kayaking) but didn't have much luck getting it set up to go off automatically if the lifejacket inflates. Seems to depend on the lifejacket design, something to bear in mind if buying one.

My concern with the pocket AIS transmitters is the likely range in genuine emergency conditions. I assume that the false activation you are referring to was of a beacon that was on a boat, several feet above water level. I've not seen any realistic test results for range with the beacon effectively at water level as it would be if the user actually fell overboard. My bet is that the range could be as little as a couple of miles - when the weather warms up a bit, you try swimming with a hand-held radio and see how far you can go before the signal disappears into the background noise. Around the Solent, that would probably still get you rescued - in the middle of the summer it is often difficult to find a large enough area of empty water to capsize a sailing dinghy! But a lot of purchasers of emergency rescue systems are going to be more interested in protection in relatively open water and I think you could be floating for hours with your pocket AIS bleeping before anyone noticed you.

 

[ZoeImogen]

My concern with the pocket AIS transmitters is the likely range in genuine emergency conditions. I assume that the false activation you are referring to was of a beacon that was on a boat, several feet above water level. I've not seen any realistic test results for range with the beacon effectively at water level as it would be if the user actually fell overboard. My bet is that the range could be as little as a couple of miles - when the weather warms up a bit, you try swimming with a hand-held radio and see how far you can go before the signal disappears into the background noise. Around the Solent, that would probably still get you rescued - in the middle of the summer it is often difficult to find a large enough area of empty water to capsize a sailing dinghy! But a lot of purchasers of emergency rescue systems are going to be more interested in protection in relatively open water and I think you could be floating for hours with your pocket AIS bleeping before anyone noticed you.

I'm not sure how high up it was - crew were all a little confused and didn't know who might have one, but it was a racing boat so possibly something stowed in a ditch bag below somewhere. Wasn't linked to the boat's own radio as no DSC distress call was sent. We picked it up from less than a mile away, two other boats (both motorboats, one the harbourmaster) picked it up from Cowes which from memory was something like 3-4 NM away. Coastguard didn't know anything about it until they were told but I'm not sure where the Solent antenna are - so in summary, useful if you go overboard and linked to your radio for a DSC mayday call, useful if your own boat will come back and pick you up but not necessarily useful if you're in a liferaft in the middle of the North Sea and didn't have time to send a VHF Mayday.

 

[PhillM]

Thanks everyone. Lots of good advice.

I agree the first rule should be not to fall in. BUT if I am in, then I think an OceanSignal's MOB1 would be my friend. I am tempted to keep one inside my life jacket (which I wear at all times when in the cockpit or on deck. It has several ways of attracting help. My second line of defence would be to use it should I have to enter the liferaft. In most cases that would be because the mother ship is in some way unusable. At which point, without a float free EPIRB there is a chance I wont get to it to activate it.

 

[PhillM]

Thanks everyone. Lots of good advice.

I agree the first rule should be not to fall in. BUT if I am in, then I think an OceanSignal's MOB1 would be my friend. I am tempted to keep one inside my life jacket (which I wear at all times when in the cockpit or on deck. It has several ways of attracting help. My second line of defence would be to use it should I have to enter the liferaft. In most cases that would be because the mother ship is in some way unusable. At which point, without a float free EPIRB there is a chance I wont get to it to activate it.

Hmm more research. The OS MOB1 does have GPS and AIS but importantly appearls not to be a PLB, so back to thinking. Perhaps the PLB1.

As previously stated, line of defence 1 is to not fall off. However, if I did when single handed, how do I call for help? Has anyone had any actual experience?

 

[maby]

Hmm more research. The OS MOB1 does have GPS and AIS but importantly appearls not to be a PLB, so back to thinking. Perhaps the PLB1.

As previously stated, line of defence 1 is to not fall off. However, if I did when single handed, how do I call for help? Has anyone had any actual experience?

I think that, if you are single-handing, a PLB is essential. Given that they are so cheap now, I don't understand why anyone would not have one. If I, or any member of my family, am going anywhere isolated - hill walking or driving in remote places where the phone signal is not reliable, I/they will take one of the PLBs with them - it's little bigger than a mobile phone and will probably get you help within a few hours anywhere on the planet. A few years ago a friend of ours who is a hill walking nut got lost in bad weather somewhere high up in the Pennines - he did eventually stumble onto help, but by that time he was geting close to serious exposure - why on earth would anyone that takes part in those sorts of activities not have a PLB costing a couple of hundred pounds in a pocket?

 

[LadyInBed]

My preference is a PLB which I carry, but this thread has got me thinking that a MOB AIS would be a useful addition.
This could mean having to look for a multi pocket LJ to house PLB, VHF, MOB AIS, Strobe, mini flares and maybe some snack bars

 

[Daverw]

My preference is a PLB which I carry, but this thread has got me thinking that a MOB AIS would be a useful addition.
This could mean having to look for a multi pocket LJ to house PLB, VHF, MOB AIS, Strobe, mini flares and maybe some snack bars

I’m starting to think the same, singlehanded as I do about 50% of the time PLB as I have now but when wife’s on board MOB AIS would be useful then, Epirb also useful then as someone is left in board to throw it, but single handed epirb no help and MOB AIS only if other boats with AIS nearby but PLB always with me as primary or secondary.