Flares or Lasers

Having once fired a series of red parachute flares and several more red hand flares whilst on a disabled boat with one badly injured person on board in clear sight of two trawlers, my opinion of flares is biased, as neither trawler responded. Took over 24 hours more to sail (engine and most electronics dead and a lot of saltwater damage below) into a remote harbour that we had not planned to go to. Injured person spent about 6 weeks in hospital, so not trivial.
My present coded boat currently carries lots of expensive in-date flares, and every 3 years I have to replace them. But for private use I certainly wouldn't carry any at all.
 
jwilson said:
Having once fired a series of red parachute flares and several more red hand flares whilst on a disabled boat with one badly injured person on board in clear sight of two trawlers, my opinion of flares is biased, as neither trawler responded. Took over 24 hours more to sail (engine and most electronics dead and a lot of saltwater damage below) into a remote harbour that we had not planned to go to. Injured person spent about 6 weeks in hospital, so not trivial.
My present coded boat currently carries lots of expensive in-date flares, and every 3 years I have to replace them. But for private use I certainly wouldn't carry any at all.
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If your boat was seaworthy....what advantage would the trawler have rendered to your injured sailor that you couldn’t have ?
 
lustyd said:
I don't think the RNLI make recommendations, they just list what's available and what it's useful for. Might be different where you are, but aside from coding I don't think we have a lot of strong guidance here.

From a SAR perspective, having a precise time and GPS stamp from an EPIRB, PLB, DSC, or even a MOB button on the plotter, would be better for their tidal simulations than a flare that nobody saw.
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I often sail yachts that don't have any of that. Simply a vhf radio, the knowledge of how to use it plus some pyros to indicate position to any rescue service. I'm sure there are plenty of others that do the same.

Of course, I've sailed and owned coded yachts with more equipment plus delivered some with all singing all dancing electronics. I think it's a mistake to assume that everyone is the same.....
 
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capnsensible said:
Has any poster cogitating over this actually seen a red parachute pyro in action? I have, twice, with successful outcomes. Mebbe that affects my views....
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Red handheld, south of Mull, Loch Buie area, pretty obvious. We were looking for it as I was responding to a Mayday.

For me, as I have said before, they offer a fallback method for indicating distress and I am happy to carry them, use them safely and believe they still have a place in the emergency toolbox, but for how much longer? Defo will be superseded, as will the laser device, because pin point positioning will become an inherent part of owning and using technology.
 
lustyd said:
I often sail yachts that don't have any of that. Simply a vhf radio, the knowledge of how to use it plus some pyros to indicate position to any rescue service. I'm sure there are plenty of others that do the same.
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Edit: for some reason the above has the wrong attribution, should be CaptainS - not sure how happened and forum won’t allow me to correct :-)

Don’t you carry a PLB and take it with you when going (offshore) on another boat with unknown equipment?
I take mine with me if going beyond local waters.
 
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capnsensible said:
Has any poster cogitating over this actually seen a red parachute pyro in action? I have, twice, with successful outcomes. Mebbe that affects my views....
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No.
Witnessed quite a few distress events, and been MayDay Relay and standby vessel for nearly an hour for one, but never seen a flare used.
All were operated by VHF and GPS positions.
 
capnsensible said:
I often sail yachts that don't have any of that. Simply a vhf radio, the knowledge of how to use it plus some pyros to indicate position to any rescue service. I'm sure there are plenty of others that do the same.

Of course, I've sailed and owned coded yachts with more equipment plus delivered some with all singing all dancing electronics. I think it's a mistake to assume that everyone is the same.....
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Did you read what I wrote at all?
 
dunedin said:
Don’t you carry a PLB and take it with you when going (offshore) on another boat with unknown equipment?
I take mine with me if going beyond local waters.
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Quoted the wrong person. @capnsensible should be quoted there. He clearly didn’t read what I wrote about SAR so I imagine his response was also rushed.
 
lustyd said:
It has just occurred to me that regardless of what you may think of flares and lasers, step one should be to bin the faded orange floating light sitting in your horseshoe buoy holder and replace it with an LED strobe. Those old design orange lights were always hopeless, always full of water, always flat batteries and the filament bulb was visible for very nearly a metre in good conditions.

Until that's replaced, I think everything else is a nice to have! Also check your lifejacket lights actually work and are fitted to all LJs.
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I kept the floating light and changed the bulb to LED. Not as good as a strobe, but a vast improvement on the previous bulb.
 
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