Is it still worth carrying flares?

GHA said:
Any links to details?
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Got a rather odd story for you. A few years ago, a friend of mine, instructing, was on a yacht in Marina Smir in Morocco. A disturbed woman attempted suicide by driving her car into the water next to his boat. He set off some flares to summon help and she was rescued. Not sure if she was happy about that tho.....
 
capnsensible said:
Got a rather odd story for you. A few years ago, a friend of mine, instructing, was on a yacht in Marina Smir in Morocco. A disturbed woman attempted suicide by driving her car into the water next to his boat. He set off some flares to summon help and she was rescued. Not sure if she was happy about that tho.....
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Need a somewhat detailed risk assessment to pick that one up ;)

* Risk of crazy driving car into water next to boat likelyhood- low, severity-high, control-flares or a cuppa and friendly shoulder :)
 
Flares: two good reasons for them, at 500’ in a helicopter, you can, in some parts of the country see a lot of boats. The one with the flare will likely get assistance quicker and secondly if you are in the water a head looks pretty small even at 200 feet. A day night will be much more easily seen. At work I carry a plb and a day night in my life jacket. Just my personal thoughts on the matter
 
What a hoot; this is almost as good an an anchor thread.

I will always carry pyrotechnics onboard, if you have ever had a helicopter fly over you four times on a Search and Rescue exercise while you are sat on a 3 meter by 3 meter orange bivy bag on a bright sunny afternoon you will understand why. Had we had an orange smoke they would have spotted us first time - we had given them a OS Grid Ref so they did know where we were.

Another night time exercise with 22 SQN RAF there were inbound about 5 miles off, I popped up a white to let the aircrew see us. Over the radio all we heard was "thanks, that saved a lot of work".

By having this additional tool in the bag, that hopefully you will never use, you might save the lifeboat/helicopter some search time meaning they can get back to base faster and you get out of the water sooner. Your choice.
 
Sandy said:
What a hoot; this is almost as good an an anchor thread.

I will always carry pyrotechnics onboard, if you have ever had a helicopter fly over you four times on a Search and Rescue exercise while you are sat on a 3 meter by 3 meter orange bivy bag on a bright sunny afternoon you will understand why. Had we had an orange smoke they would have spotted us first time - we had given them a OS Grid Ref so they did know where we were.

Another night time exercise with 22 SQN RAF there were inbound about 5 miles off, I popped up a white to let the aircrew see us. Over the radio all we heard was "thanks, that saved a lot of work".

By having this additional tool in the bag, that hopefully you will never use, you might save the lifeboat/helicopter some search time meaning they can get back to base faster and you get out of the water sooner. Your choice.
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++1
 
The Pacific Princess cruise ship turned around Saturday in the North Sea to rescue three men in a lifeboat who had sent up a flare, according to an Associated Press journalist onboard the ship. Two other men from their capsized fishing boat were still missing. From a post.
 
Mark-1 said:
The fact that rocket flares have been superseded for communication in every field except distress and are almost never used in that context demonstrates they absolutely don't reliably work.
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Many years ago when I was poor and VHF was too expensive for me I needed to use flares in anger. Howling wind and rain. No-one saw them. The didn't work for me and I prefer more modern forms of communication and keep several options onboard.
 
Tranona said:
Do you have any hard evidence that flares have been the sole method of communication in a rescue situation? This is not the view of many in the rescue services nor in the RYA who have been lobbying the MCA to remove the compulsion for pleasure vessels.

I find it very difficult to accept your statement that people (in general) know what they are looking at and know what to do. Add to that people no longer look out to sea in the way they did in the past and modern methods of communication are both instant and directed at those who can help rather than random in the hope that somebody "who knows..." will see them and react.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-45311589
 
If you've got all the usual electronic safety equipment and electric flares, is there really still a need for pyrotechnic ones ?
 
Yealm said:
If you've got all the usual electronic safety equipment and electric flares, is there really still a need for pyrotechnic ones ?
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You are the skipper, your choice.

Personally, I carry them.

Has anybody tested an electric flare in daylight with a SAR helicopter? Can they be seen?
 
Elecglitch said:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-45311589
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That was stage , it was reported one fishermen to say , "we been reading YBW on flares , and wanted to prove some posting wrong and flares are useful "
Another fishermen said , " we all run out of credit on our phone talking to our love once , we didn't think about calling the CG until it was too late " the third guy said " we only set it off to keep warm , "
 
Sandy said:
You are the skipper, your choice.

Personally, I carry them.

Has anybody tested an electric flare in daylight with a SAR helicopter? Can they be seen?
Click to expand...

You're implying you think it's irresponsible for a skipper not to carry pyrotechnic flares. I think the theme of this thread is that that may no longer be the case.

And the helicopter will have your GPS position to a couple of metres ?
I think the electric flares are pretty good too..
 
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