LED and Laser Distress Flares - do you rely on them?

I keep going back to the time Iwas aboard a yacht that was knocked down of Alderney in heavy weather. Damaged the steering and when we got power back we asked for help and the lifeboat launched to us. They couldn’t spot us in the confused sea despite us using a “steamer scarer” torch. We then popped a flare and the life boat was alongside in minutes.
Comment from the crew was that they didn’t see the direct light of the flare (rain, spray and wave troughs prevented that) rather they saw the back scatter from the flare above the boat.
Thats why I carry pyrotechnics as well as a laser beacon in addition to all the electronics I can afford (AIS, PLBs, EPIRB and DSC VHF). Yes, an electronic beacon is a useful long lasting marker but you’re deluding yourself if you think it replaces the sheer volume and intensity of light put out by a pyrotechnic.
 
duncan99210 said:
... when we got power back we asked for help and the lifeboat launched to us. They couldn’t spot us in the confused sea...

Thats why I carry pyrotechnics as well as a laser beacon in addition to all the electronics I can afford (AIS, PLBs, EPIRB and DSC VHF).
Click to expand...
Interesting that the lifeboat was not able to find you using AIS alone, although I do appreciate that this won't work in other circumstances where the VHF isn't functioning due to loss of aerial or other damage.

This is another example of the flare being used on the final stages of rescue to guide the rescue vessel in, rather than a primary means of attracting attention.
I'd prefer to be proactive and contact potentially rescue options directly (DSC/EPIRB) rather than passively waiting for someone to spot a distant flare by chance.
 
Last edited:
Ningaloo said:
Interesting that the lifeboat was not able to find you using AIS alone, although I do appreciate that this won't work in other circumstances where the VHF isn't functioning due to loss of aerial or other damage.

This is another example of the flare being used on the final stages of rescue to guide the rescue vessel in, rather than a primary means of attracting attention.
I'd prefer to be proactive and contact potentially rescue options directly (DSC/EPIRB) rather than passively waiting for someone to spot a distant flare by chance.
Click to expand...
We’d lost all of the electronics on board because the batteries had broken loose in the knockdown. We managed to get the radio working and used that to summon help. Using pyrotechnics (parachute flare) might have produced a result but probably not, as the cloud base was very low. I never said or implied that pyrotechnics are the best method of summoning help, rather that they are a useful (sometime vital) adjunct to the electronics.
The lifeboat asked for us to transmit a long signal trying to use that to find us but eventually asked for a flare. We didn’t rely on pyrotechnics for summoning assistance but it turned out to be needed for the last bit.
Irrespective of what the MCA decide in terms of the carriage of pyrotechnics for boats over 13.7m, there remains the hurdle of SOLAS which is the international agreement covering all of this sort of stuff. Until SOLAS is amended to include LED beacons as a recognised distress signal, sailing beyond UK waters will still require you to carry pyrotechnics in those waters where national rules require them (other than innocent passage voyages). Nor will ships crews be trained to recognise LED beacons as legitimate distress signals until this change is made. So what? If all you’re left with is a LED beacon, then use it but recognise that it may well not be anywhere near as effective as you think.
 
I think it depends what kind of sailing you do. Offshore, I can see a use for parachute flares, inshore, there are so many alternatives - DSC radio, phones, electric flares, etc, that I don't see the need for them. ISTM that most people on most boats have so little experience of using pyrotechnics that, in an emergency, when all sorts of nasties are hitting the fan, the last thing I want is some half-panicked crew member (I include me) with a sodding great flame in his hand, especially when he's forgotten to put a glove on and it starts getting hot.

I carry one LED flare. It has a battery life of several years, then I put new batteries in it. If it ever goes out of date, I take it to my local tip. should I ever need it, it'll work for a couple of hours, not a couple of minutes. Plan A is the big red button on the radio, plan B is the handheld, C is the mobile and D is the flubber. The flare is for when the lifeboat's getting close. If all I've got it the flare, I can set it to flash SOS, which meets no regulations whatsoever, but is likely to be recognised by Joe Public on shore as a call for help where a red light among all the other lights at night may not. That's my risk assessment. Yours may be different, which doesn't make it wrong.

I can see a time coming when disposal of the fireworks will be so difficult for ordinary folk that they will go the way of the Decca Navigator. We aren't there yet, but...
 
Sandy said:
I'd be more interested to hear the views of the Lifeboats, RNLI and Independants, and the CG helicopter pilots as I strongly suspect few in the RYA have participated in rescues.
Click to expand...
Quite. Ive see the rescue helicopters training with smoke. They dont make "smoke" LEDs. In daylight the smoke plume of a flare is very distinctive, it is not highly directional unlike LEDs and it cannot be mistaken for an intermittent reflection of something far out to sea.

The move to ban flares has more to do with perceived risk to user or perhaps risk of misappropriation by terrorists.

A 30 year old flare will work. I have tried one out in safe circumstances, and though it burned a bit odd it burned. An LED with corroded or time decayed battery is useless
 
Stemar said:
I think it depends what kind of sailing you do. Offshore, I can see a use for parachute flares, inshore, there are so many alternatives - DSC radio, phones, electric flares, etc, that I don't see the need for them. ISTM that most people on most boats have so little experience of using pyrotechnics that, in an emergency, when all sorts of nasties are hitting the fan, the last thing I want is some half-panicked crew member (I include me) with a sodding great flame in his hand, especially when he's forgotten to put a glove on and it starts getting hot.

I carry one LED flare. It has a battery life of several years, then I put new batteries in it. If it ever goes out of date, I take it to my local tip. should I ever need it, it'll work for a couple of hours, not a couple of minutes. Plan A is the big red button on the radio, plan B is the handheld, C is the mobile and D is the flubber. The flare is for when the lifeboat's getting close. If all I've got it the flare, I can set it to flash SOS, which meets no regulations whatsoever, but is likely to be recognised by Joe Public on shore as a call for help where a red light among all the other lights at night may not. That's my risk assessment. Yours may be different, which doesn't make it wrong.

I can see a time coming when disposal of the fireworks will be so difficult for ordinary folk that they will go the way of the Decca Navigator. We aren't there yet, but...
Click to expand...
I have sailed off the coast of Ireland and off the coast of wales and cornwall when I could see farmers on the cliffs and walkers and I have been unable to hear the CG weather forecasts. Your big red button might be useless in those circumstances unless a potential rescue boat hears you, or if catastrophe takes out your battery power. We dont mostly sail in the Solent where VHF contact is more certain
.
An EPRIB will summon help, but you will probably have died of hypothermia by the time anyone looks for you if you are in the water by then.

I will stick with renewing my flare pack, and ponder new fangled devices as a separate excercise
 
Pyrotechnics are mandatory where we're based but I would carry anyway, electronic flares not recognised. Lifeboat shouts are often after member of pubic sees a flare, not sure someone perceived as playing with a laser would have the same result. PLBs and EPIRBS are obviously useful but can't be seen or heard by nearby boats and radio may be down. Time between activating PLB and rescue services arriving on scene leaves someone in UK water likely to be dead from hypothermia.
 
Pyrotechnic. LEDs are pretty toys for impressing people with over drinks in the marina but there is no way I would trust my life to one. Mind you, the pyrotechnics are very much last resort after VHF, EPIRB and mobile phone.
 
Last edited:
duncan99210 said:
We’d lost all of the electronics on board because the batteries had broken loose in the knockdown. We managed to get the radio working and used that to summon help. Using pyrotechnics (parachute flare) might have produced a result but probably not, as the cloud base was very low. I never said or implied that pyrotechnics are the best method of summoning help, rather that they are a useful (sometime vital) adjunct to the electronics.
Click to expand...
I used to lend my last boat to a very senior and experienced coastguard. His advice was to carry as many hand-held red flares as I could afford and not to bother with rockets at all.

I think people sometimes overlook the effect of the smoke produced by a handheld flare, which is visible itself in daylight and at night time reflects light so that the effective source becomes very much bigger.
 
Stemar said:
If all I've got it the flare, I can set it to flash SOS, which meets no regulations whatsoever, but is likely to be recognised by Joe Public on shore as a call for help where a red light among all the other lights at night may not. That's my risk assessment. Yours may be different, which doesn't make it wrong.
Click to expand...
I'd really like to know what proportion of the general public would know the morse code for SOS[1]. My guess is that it's about 1% at best, and the rest would simply think "Oh, a flickering light", if they thought anything at all.

[1] I know the morse distress signal is not actually SOS.
 
I have in the past argued in favour of pyrotechnics. But when I decided my flares were too far beyond their use-by date, I replaced them with an LED flare. This was for several reasons. First, I am no longer based on the west coast of Scotland, and so less dependent on alerting nearby vessels to my plight. second, the safety thing. Third, Cost! replacing pyrotechnics every 3 years or so is an expensive hobby, and as France, Belgium and Holland are within my cruising limits, I don't want to fall foul of regulations in those countries by having out-of-date flares. The thing that finally made my mind up was that, as noted, the ones available now can be set to flash ...---... - which IS an international distress signal, as anyone with the mandatory sheet of distress signals can check. Finally, I always regarded flares as a backup system -the primary distress call would be by VHF, of which I have two independent systems aboard.

Although the general public might not recognize...---... as a distress signal, the vast majority of mariners - i.e. those who might be able to help you - would (I hope!)
 
  • Like
Reactions: RAI
In my opinion, handheld flares are more of a danger than an aid. They can burn your hands, blind you, burst your liferaft, and that's if that actually work properly. I don't carry any of them any more. I carry an LED flare instead.

Having a couple of red rockets on board has value, as does having a couple of floating smoke cannisters.

So, that's what I now carry:- 2 rockets, 2 floating smokes, 1 LED flare.
 
AntarcticPilot said:
I have in the past argued in favour of pyrotechnics. But when I decided my flares were too far beyond their use-by date, I replaced them with an LED flare. This was for several reasons. First, I am no longer based on the west coast of Scotland, and so less dependent on alerting nearby vessels to my plight. second, the safety thing. Third, Cost! replacing pyrotechnics every 3 years or so is an expensive hobby, and as France, Belgium and Holland are within my cruising limits, I don't want to fall foul of regulations in those countries by having out-of-date flares. The thing that finally made my mind up was that, as noted, the ones available now can be set to flash ...---... - which IS an international distress signal, as anyone with the mandatory sheet of distress signals can check. Finally, I always regarded flares as a backup system -the primary distress call would be by VHF, of which I have two independent systems aboard.

Although the general public might not recognize...---... as a distress signal, the vast majority of mariners - i.e. those who might be able to help you - would (I hope!)
Click to expand...

Flashing red light in an area where people are used to see flashing channel buoys is hardly likely to be noticed whereas a red flare will be.
 
Stemar said:
especially when he's forgotten to put a glove on and it starts getting hot.
Click to expand...

The handle end is hollow plastic and doesn't really get hot.

The Pains Wessex telescopic ones are particularly good - the metal tube with the pyro compound in pulls out well clear of the handle end of the plastic outer tube. Yes, I'd choose to put on the rigger gloves that are in the grab bag on top of the flares, just in case, but if they weren't available I wouldn't hesitate to use it without. The manufacturer's instruction sheet doesn't call for the use of gloves.

Pete
 
So who has used flares in anger and why?

Probably the only useful thing to come out of this thread, do something positive onboard to try and have a boat which won't need to use flares....
 
  • Like
Reactions: RAI
GHA said:
So who has used flares in anger and why?

Probably the only useful thing to come out of this thread, do something positive onboard to try and have a boat which won't need to use flares....
Click to expand...
Very few of us ever needed a mayday signal fortunately. I would never use a red flare of any style pyro or elctro for a pan pan. Even a white flare might cause confusion. My 2 pan pans were within distant sight of a lifeboat out sunday morning practicing so locating me was easy by voice instruction with much aid
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top