Flares...traditional or LED?

[RAI]

I inherited a box of about 40 out-of-date flares, most about 30 years old. One evening we let them off in the garden (not entirely sober I admit: it was my twins' 21st birthday party). Every single one worked just fine. I wonder whether you'd get 40/40 laser flares working after 30 years?

I suspect they made flares better 30 years ago than those tried out in Lagos. As for the laser ones, who knows, I've got radios on board that are older than 30 years and still work.

 

[JumbleDuck]

One model down, how many to go?

Apart from the market leader, how about the other laser "flare" PBO tested (https://www.pbo.co.uk/gear/led-laser-flares-tested-36341)?

Any more you'd like me to check? Everything else in that test was more of a torch

 

[rszemeti]

Do you have a link to the LED device you mention please

Just a prototype I built, I have some more PCB's coming and will take some photos when I build a few up.

 

[goeasy123]

A rescue helicopter pilot once told me that the easiest thing for him to see is fast flashing white strobe.

 

[MoodySabre]

I asked an RNLI person at LIBS about their view on electronic flares. He said that were not flares but electronic devices that many would not recognise as distress warnings, particularly non-boaters seeing a twinkling light. He didn't think that were a substitute for pyros or anything else.

Personally a DSC VHF, a PLB and a big torch are adequate. You can spend hours crossing to Holland (for example) without seeing another vessel. Letting off a pyro is no guarantee of rescue. I don't carry them anymore.

 

[Resolution]

Several times a year we sail around a jagged rocky headland near our base in Turkey, uninhabited for about 5 miles, usually moderate seas and brisk onshore wind. I have wondered what would happen if , heaven forbid, the mast came down and the prop got fouled.
-Rocks are steep too, depths over 30 metres so anchoring unlikely to help much.
-No-one to see a hand-held flare.
-No-one to see any LED type of flare, and daylight anyway.
-Mast down so main VHF no use until the emergency aerial can be extracted and fitted.
+ Rocket flare might just be seen from a distance??
+Hand held VHF might just be heard from a local workboat (but do they monitor Ch16 ?)
+PLB could be activated, but what would be the reaction time and from where?
++Mobile phone coverage is good and we have the phone numbers for the coastguard; they usually have vessels at sea within a few miles.

My existing pyro flares are all out of date last December, so replacements are being ordered anyway, as much out of habit as anything else.
Peter

 

[LadyInBed]

The morse for SOS is recognised internationally as a distress signal, and is a well known sequence. Even school kids know it.

More likely to recognise SMS than SOS as there is an SMS alert with the letters in morse.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

There is no (UK or international) recognised format/flashtype/sequence of LED light that is recognised as a distress alert. Assuming you already have DSC VHF and a PLB or EPIRB, then saying to the rescuer "I'm the boat with the bright flashy light" is a vey useful addition when they are faced with an area with lots of boats and no other obvious sign of a problem, particularly if they all match the description of "I'm the white one with white sails".

Www.solocoastalsailing.co.uk

Both the ones I looked at in Foxes claimed compliance with international distress standards; both were capable of flashing an SOS signal, which IS one of the mandated distress signals. I've got one as a replacement for pyrotechnics; it should keep a lot longer than flares, signal for a lot longer than a flare and is more convenient to stow than flares. In frequented waters, I think it will be fine as a replacement for flares. Obviously rocket flares are visible for much further, but for coastal sailing, that's hardly a consideration; there will be vessels within a few miles of me under most circumstances, and I will almost always be within VHF range of help.