re: flares.....

[incognito]

re: flares.....

(Excuse my starting a new thread but load time of old one getting too much....).

What an interesting set of responses. I conclude the following:
1) Flares are not entirely predictable.
2) The predictability and performance can be expected to deteriorate with age
3) They do not make 'em like they used to (my old 76 ones were encased in PW factory-sealed h/d p/e ecapsulating bags - quite difficult to tear open).
4) Since they don't encapsulate them any more, I reckon that the poster who takes them down to the butcher is showing the way. I am going to get all my latest flares done.
5) Keep all such encapsulated flares that you can afford space for, you may need em one day.

To those who made very valid points about where and how to let them off, I should have mentioned that they were tested in a large school playing field, I wore my tough leather gardening gloves, just in case, and we live a very long way from the sea!!

One final point which nobody touched on is that the manufacturers have a vested interest in making the safe life (which MUST be observed on a coded yacht) as short as they can. So, if the probability of success is initially, say, 95% - what is it at expiry date? or twice the expiry date? - presuming that the flares are encapsulated in h/d p/e. like those of 1976?

Encapsulation would keep out the moisture, and the little I know of conventional chemical explosives suggests that they are NOT particularly unstable with age - moisture is the killer, which, coupled with heat can cause some oxidation of chemicals which we rely on to oxidise when we want them to. Have to accept that the parachutes may give trouble, that is not an explosive (but my 26yr old opened for all that).

I am NOT suggesting that flares do not have limited safe lifetime, if the definition of safety is clearly made, ie 90% reliability or somesuch - but the life, without some reliability context, stamped on a flare, seems arbitrary and expensive - to US!!

Remember that I am not knocking the RNLI or some charity here, but questioning the objectivity of a commercial organisation.

 

[Cornishman]

May I answer three of your points:
1. Encapsulating: To redress something the manufacturers stopped doing with good reason is silly. The reason they stopped encapsulating flares was because users complained that the envelopes were just too difficult to open, especially with cold and wet hands in the dark on a pitching and rolling deck in a Force 9. So, the water resistant bottle with a coarse threaded lid was introduced.
2. As a former demonstrator who regularly attended updates at a manufacturer's works I can assure you that they are continuously working to extend the safe working life of their products. One manufacturer has met with limited success. Commercial shipping, which uses exactly the same pyrotechnics plus a few others as we do, has had to replace theirs at specified intervals for many years and the numbers involved compared to the leisure industry are enormous.
3. It does not matter where you discharge your flares, it is still illegal. Remember that an overflying aircraft is just as likely to report your efforts in the belief that an aircraft has downed, and then the search begins.

 

[incognito]

Your first two points make sense.

Your latter point is officiousness, bordering on the patronising. Most nights from early october to late november, especially at weekends, fireworks closely resembling or same as safety flares are let off, certiainly in my area. I have never heard of anyone being misled into launching a search and rescue exercise.

Please keep a sense of proportion, just as most posting here do.

 

[Cornishman]

I am sorry you take that attitude. Several years ago, when demonstrators were allowed to discharge green para flares, one of mine was reported by a civilian helicopter pilot to his air traffic control who passed it on to the local police and to Portland CG. This despite the fact that all authorities had been informed of the date and times of the demo, and then telephoned immediately before and after the demo. It caused quite a hullabaloo and was even reported in the local press where the establishment for which I was giving the demo was branded as irresponsible. We were many miles from the coast.
I try hard to write from my experiences.

 

[andyball]

re the "limited sucess" of longer dates.....hansson make commercial flares with a 4 year date : prices look about 11% higher than their 3 year ones for hand-helds, and just 2.5% more for parachute rockets.


Seems ok for 1/3 more date.

 

[BrianJ]

Hey "incognito" I would take note of what the "Cornishman " says.. thats experience talking
BrianJ

 

[Guest]

Cornishman's latest demonstrates that the nanny state and the rescue industry are alive and well and additionally mildly inefficient.

 

[tome]

Flare up

Bit of a rough weekend, was it?

 

[incognito]

Returning to your first two points, not wishing to prolong a pointless exchange on the third....

The removal of the PE encapsulation could have been done by making a clever opening device - and then sold such encapsulated flares at a premium, IF, repeat IF, the manufacturers didn't have a vested interest in flares having a limited life.

As to the continuous work to extend the safe lifetime - speaking not as a demonstrator, or anyone with a vested interest - just as an end user... they are clearly not succeeding, since the safe lifetime now is the same as it was 26 yrs ago. Aye, OVER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY OF CONTINUOUS WORK !!!!

 

[Cornishman]

Having developed the "clever" water resistant square shaped plastic container with its easily removable screw top lid, much approved by commercial shipping, encapsulation was no longer necessary.
Your comment suggests that demonstrators had vested interests, so I should remind you that we were all volunteers for the RYA raising funds at demos by means of collections on behalf of what used to be called The RYA Seamanship Foundation which provided sailing for the disabled. I don't think any of us even claimed travelling expenses. I certainly didn't.
I believe that none other than the Royal Ordnance Factory tried to develop longer lasting materials and did produce some form of distress pyrotechnics, but I haven't seen them on the shelves lately and wonder if they, too, failed.
Can I help you with any further information?

 

[incognito]

You make it difficult to avoid a war of words. Despite my previous, deliberately avoiding continuing the 'third point', you insist on pontificating.

I see nothing in my posting to imply that I was suggesting that demonstrators had vested interests - that is something to do with touching a nerve, I am afraid.

And do not personalise by trotting out your do-goody enterprise! You imply that if one carries a collection box for, say, RNLI, one is better qualified to talk about the service that the RNLI offers than someone who hasn't.

Your useful contributions have been ones of fact - your opinions are, however, self-serving.

 

[Cornishman]

"speaking not as a demonstrator, or anyone with a vested interest"

If you say that with just a little emphasis on the word "anyone" it becomes "anyone else" so I apologise for misunderstanding you.
No, you didn't touch a nerve because there is none there to be touched on this matter. All I wanted to do was to tell you a little of the history of the development of flares which I have been involved with over the last 25 years or so. Sorry if this sounds like pontification, it is certainly not intended to be so. I'm a good Protestant.

 

[incognito]

Well, certainly did not intend the one to subsume the other. Misunderstanding over.

I am glad that pontiffication is not your metier.

I was getting on my high horse due to my perception that authors here seem to offer their experience not as a way to illuminate their contribution, but, rather, as a way of doing two other things: a) "see, world, how clever I am", and b) "since I am so experienced and clever, your opinion cannot be as weighty as mine".

This particularly applies when naive people come to the board, without foreknowledge of the forum, and ask simplistic questions about flags, behaviour on the water, colregs etc, which have been well-worked before.

I am quite happy to accept that you were justifying your posting, but you must admit that implying that I was behaving inadvisedly by letting off a flare in the Greater London suburbs, was a bit OTT.

I think I had already said that I was in a large sportsfield, wearing strong thick gloves (as I considered the experiment slightly dangerous). Only one was a flare, the other two were smoke, which is only noticeable as smoke within about 25ft at night.

But back to the issue. It seems fair enough that food manufacturers should have to put sell-by or eat-by dates on their products, but, since flares do not magically alter their structure overnight, on the last day of 2002, say, it would be better if we could have some expectation of performance, otherwise 'reliability', so we could decide how many flares to hold, and for how long - using our own critiera for final replacement or retirement.

 

[Twister_Ken]

>...since flares do not magically alter their structure overnight, on the last day of 2002, say, it would be better if we could have some expectation of performance, otherwise 'reliability', so we could decide how many flares to hold, and for how long - using our own critiera for final replacement or retirement.<

The 'demonstrators' that ran the flare firing session I went to and a guy on the Pains Wessex stand at LIBS gave the same advice - keep an in-date set, and the last out-date set. They all felt there was a high liklihood that most flares would work after 6 years - although some might burn pink rather than red, or not burn for the full time, or reach their full height. If you want, there's nothing to stop you keeping the previous set as well. After all, when the water is lapping over the gunwhales even a flare with a half-chance of working is better than none.

It's that old fear thing again isn't it? If you didn't have in-date flares and someone died in a situation where flares might have helped, how would you feel, and almost as importantly, how would your insurers react?

 

[incognito]

You have put your finger on the nub of the problem. Given that my latest flares (like any flares) have this date stamped clearly and obviously on them, say end of 2002. Anything that happens after that, and you're damned if they don't work. I do know that they (the manufacturers) are NOT damned if they don't work when they are within date.
I haven't thought this out (so please, don't shout if it seems too stupid) but suppose that they had 'manufactured date' stamped on them, and expected reliability vs time published, so we could maintain a stock which would have, say, a 1 in 400 (roughly same as two flares, according to an earlier posting by someone) chance of success. This could leave you feeling not so uncomfortable buying one new flare every 4 years, say. (No, I haven't worked out whether that would work, cos I don't have the reliability degradations figures we would need to do the calculation). My bet is that such a replacement programme would make more sense - after all, you are being recommended to keep the old set by the makers !!

 

[Twister_Ken]

Reliability

I guess the problem with the reliabilty/time proposition is that the mfgs would burble on about not being responsible for the conditions under which they are stored, etc, etc, etc and thus are not in position to predict service life beyond the promised 3 years.

BTW - I've always found it slightly worrying/ironic that many chandlers won't supply flares by mail order becasue of in-transit dangers, yet they are perfectly happy for us to keep them bouncing around in the bottom of a boat for years!

 

[Guest]

Re: Reliability

Ken, I dont think even you can "bounce" flares about in your boat the way Royal Mail (or should that Consignia) can bounce parcels about<s>. I think you'll find its not the chandlers who wont send them out that way its the "mail" that wont accept them!

 

[BrendanS]

There are so many if's and but's in this line of questioning..regs that say that flares to be in date; common sense (taken by many manufacturers, chandlery's and demonstrators) to have in date set, and keep out of date flares

What the manufacturers cannot allow for, is the abuse that the flares will take. Well cared for flares may well last many years (kept dry, stopped from bouncing around, etc - advice at the demonstration I attended that putting a pair of heavy duty gloves in the plastic flare container will not only stop your hands getting burnt, but will also stop the flares getting damaged bouncing round - padding of any sort is a good idea to extend flare life).

What if the manufacturers guaranteed the flares for 6 years, then someone kept them in the bilge in 6 inches of oily water with no protection, then sued when they didn't perform?

PS (please don't read further if you dislike pontification!) one of the club members who let off a smoke flare at the demonstation I attended burnt his hand. He was wearing heavy gloves as provided by the demonstrator. The handle quite small, and his hand overlapped onto the bottom of metal cylinder, and burnt through glove before he noticed. No serious harm done, but the point was taken by all there. Stuck hand into one of the metal buckets full of water ready for such an eventuality, and also used for dousing used flares.

Demonstrator also mentioned that someone had once dropped a burning smoke flare into a metal bucket of water - it had burnt through bottom. His advice was to let off smoke flares at arms length, downwind, over the side of the boat, as GRP or wood would suffer significant damage from bits dropping off the flare.(pontification over)

 

[incognito]

OK, I give up. As TwisterKen says, we are damned if anything happens to someone on our boat and our flares are duff, and 2 days out of date. So the system stays, and we keep paying and smiling.

All the stuff about gloves, burning holes in buckets, etc etc has been pretty interesting.

I hope I didn't offend anyone by getting on my high horse about 'pontificating' - that is the far lesser of the two bad habits which occur here - the one that really bugs me is being snide and abusive about the person who posts if someone doesn't like the message he is posting.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Flares in anger?

Lots of heat and light below (poor pun I know) but one wonders about the relevance of flares in today's VHF/EPIRB world.

Has anyone ever used distress flares in extremis (as opposed to demonstrations/November 5, etc)?

If so, did the cavalry arrive over the horizon in the nicotine?