Replacement for time expired Coastal flare pack

There is one aspect that the flare has that no LED version can have .... that's recognisable burn ...

Even a person on a cliff or beach - if they see a flare go up - it has a particu;lar character to it and is recognised ... unlike an LED that could basically be mistaken for a strange flashlight ...
 
mjcp said:
The local mountain rescue team had their 1st callout via a watch recently - a brave new world !
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Breitling might have something to say about that, theirs go back to the 1990’s. Consumer watches are catching up, but most aren’t proper rescue solutions, just messaging. Even Garmin’s is a proprietary rescue coordination centre rather than MRCC like the Breitling would have used.
 
Refueler said:
There is one aspect that the flare has that no LED version can have .... that's recognisable burn ...

Even a person on a cliff or beach - if they see a flare go up - it has a particu;lar character to it and is recognised ... unlike an LED that could basically be mistaken for a strange flashlight ...
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While true, the number of other options when that close in is enormous. Dealing with expired flares in the UK is notoriously difficult (aside from the new centre at Cowes) so for most it just isn’t worth while having them voluntarily. I’ve spent less on EPIRB and PLB than I’d have spent on flares in the same time period, and both give the right people an exact location. Even without them a VHF is better when close in.
Flares were useful in the past when comms were limited but that time is long gone for most of us.
 
We all have to do our own risk assessment, obviously, and mine may well be different from yours.

If it all hits the fan, I reckon I'm going to be pretty busy trying to keep us from drowning, and the idea of a terrified Madame with a bloody great flame in her hand also terrifies me, especially if things are bumpy. Yes, she's been trained on them, but it was a while ago, and will she remember? Come to that, it's probably 20 years since I let off a flare, so I can't say too much on that score either. An LED job would be much safer and more reliable - and it doesn't go out of date!

Given the number of other ways of calling for help - DSC VHF, HH VHF, phones (x2), and for the sailing I do - mostly Solent pottering, rarely out of mobile range), I'm quite happy to have an LED flare and no fireworks. I don't feel the need for one now, but for more than an occasional cross-channel jaunt, I reckon an EPIRB would be a must. Even for blue water, wonder if my money wouldn't be better spent on an SSB radio (is that still a thing?) or a sat phone that I could take with me to the liferaft.
 
Flares definitely grab the attention in a way that nothing else does. I used to live in Ocean Village in Southampton. On 2 separate occasions I saw a parachute flare out of the window. On neither occasion was I sat looking out of the window, just saw it out of the corner of my eye... But those things just grab your attention.
On both occasions I dialed it in to the coastguard, and in conversation was told that at least 5 people had done so. As it turns out neither were genuine distress calls, probably kids letting one off from the beach in Netley.

Now I firmly agree that flares would not be the 1st, 2nd, 3rd or.... Method that I would choose to attract attention in an emergency. But I'm not ready to go offshore without them yet.
 
Like many of the contributors, the only flares I carry are those in the liferaft, and I would gladly remove them if it meant a longer service interval. (Slightly off-topic, but I believe liferaft service intervals are driven by the three-year expiry of the flares rather than the inflation gases in the liferaft.)

I’ve not seen any data from the MCA or RNLI indicating when a flare was last the primary means of raising distress. Such information would be useful to inform this discussion.
 
flaming said:
probably kids letting one off from the beach in Netley.
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More likely a boat owner with no other disposal option!
flaming said:
But I'm not ready to go offshore without them yet.
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Offshore is a very different scenario. No “locals” to see the flare other than passing ships but they are certainly the best way to attract attention from a passing ship. That said if a ship is ignoring their radio they may just as easily ignore the flare. A call from an MRCC on the other hand is hard to ignore if you want to keep your job.
 
flaming said:
On both occasions I dialed it in to the coastguard, and in conversation was told that at least 5 people had done so. As it turns out neither were genuine distress calls, probably kids letting one off from the beach in Netley.
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An incident where, despite 5 people seeing a flare, nothing was found doesn't strengthen the case for flares.

I think the one thing flares to do that's arguably unique is that it puts a bright signal on a FLIR camera. (For about 4 minutes.) I'd still look for safer, repeatable ways - holding a hot kettle up, maybe.
 
Mark-1 said:
An incident where, despite 5 people seeing a flare, nothing was found doesn't strengthen the case for flares.
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That's an utterly illogical argument. kids set off flares and leg it from the beach? Flares work well for finding people who want to be found, that being the point of them, when the assumption is that the person who let off the flare is still basically where they fired it from.... They don't work for finding someone who fires one and then doesn't want to be found and doesn't hang around....

If you want to see the case for Flares go re-read the MAIB report on Hooligan. Dirty night in winter in Lyme Bay. Keel falls off, boat flips, some of the crew make it into the life raft and fire off the flares exactly as their training - i.e fire some, wait, fire some more. Flares are seen by a passing ship and they're pulled out of the water just over an hour later, fast enough to save the life of the crew member who had to swim out of the upturned boat in his underwear. Sadly one crew wasn't seen after the capsize and never made it into the liferaft.

Sure, if you add in an EPIRB or a PLB, especially an AIS enabled one, then that's also a good thing. But the flares did the job that night when they were, quite literally, the only way of attracting attention that they had. And crucially the help they attracted was the closest to them and able to help immediately. They didn't have to wait for the coastguard to determine if it is a false alarm, then task the assets, scramble the chopper at 0330 for a flight out to the middle of Lyme Bay, where the chopper crew then needs to locate the casualty. In all of those things electronics help, but they require volts, and signals, and people with the skills to use those signals.

The tech example is the Rambler incident. Similar story, keel falls off, boat flips. No flares make it out of the boat, no EPIRBs either, liferafts aren't reachable. Just a PLB. Which takes 45 minutes before the signal is received. In that time several boats pass within 400m of the upturned hull without seeing them. Despite lifejacket whistles being blown and torches flashed etc. The coastguard's initial assumption is that a PLB has fallen off a yacht, so they put out a fairly "routine" call to anyone with the PLB registered to X to get in touch. It takes the good fortune that the navigator of Leopard recognizes the name attached to the PLB alert as from Rambler's emergency contact, and realizes that he cannot see Rambler on AIS any more, and fails to raise them on the VHF to raise the alarm. 2 hours after the incident. It was nearly 3 hours after the capsize that anyone reached the upturned hull. That's a lot longer than in the Hooligan rescue, and had it been in similar temperatures there would have been multiple fatalities.
Had a single red handheld flare made it out of the boat they would have been rescued 10 minutes after they capsized by Leopard which passed less than 400m away.

Now sure, PLB tech has moved on a lot, and if you pay the premium for an AIS enabled one you'll pop up on the chartplotter of anyone in the vicinity. but still... I'm not ready to sail without flares.

By no means the best solution in all circumstances. By no means the 1st method you should consider to call for help, or 2nd, or 3rd, or..... But a proven method of last resort. And what they are, especially offshore, is an utterly ambiguous "I'm here and I need help". Even now, how many DSC alerts, or PLB activations etc turn out to be false alarms? So there is always an element of verifying before assets are tasked.
 
Mark-1 said:
So the kids were found and seen legging off? Seems more like nothing was found.
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I don't know. I was just the bloke who called in that I'd seen one. The chap on the phone gave the impression this was not his first rodeo once I gave him an approximate bearing that lined up with Netley beach.

But interesting how you seize on that one aspect of that post...
 
Mark-1 said:
An incident where, despite 5 people seeing a flare, nothing was found doesn't strengthen the case for flares.

I think the one thing flares to do that's arguably unique is that it puts a bright signal on a FLIR camera. (For about 4 minutes.) I'd still look for safer, repeatable ways - holding a hot kettle up, maybe.
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I think the 5 calls into CG is an indication of how valuable the flare is ... I think you dismiss it too easily.

Imagine that there are 5 calls for kids letting off as fun - then a 6th call comes in for someone genuinely in need ... CG react checking out - rescue is set in motion ...

I'm wary of trusting an LED version ... not only because of the characteristic loss compared to pyro flare - but also that LASER pointers etc are in the news as hazards to aircraft etc ... this could create a situation where an observer disregards the LED 'flare' thinking its some prat with a LASER 'flare' ...

I'm not convinced yet ...
 
Mark-1 said:
Nothing says effective like "Flare sighted, nothing found.".

(In fact, try googling "Flare sighted, nothing found." and see how many hits you get!!)
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I have no idea why you're struggling so much with the concept that people letting off parachute flares for a laugh wouldn't hang around to be found 15 minutes later by whoever was tasked by the coastguard to investigate....

The point was far more that when a flare goes up it grabs the attention and gets people to call it in. That's it.
 
Gadget257 said:
I’ve not seen any data from the MCA or RNLI indicating when a flare was last the primary means of raising distress. Such information would be useful to inform this discussion.
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At my particular lifeboat station, probably at least 25 years ago.

The only times flares have been used more recently is to pinpoint which particular boat we're looking for, although that's less of an issue now, as it's easier for a vessel to provide an accurate position. If necessary we can DF onto their VHF, EPIRB or PLB.

And at night I'll ask them to turn their nav lights on and off repeatedly, or flash a torch.
 
lustyd said:
Breitling might have something to say about that, theirs go back to the 1990’s. Consumer watches are catching up, but most aren’t proper rescue solutions, just messaging. Even Garmin’s is a proprietary rescue coordination centre rather than MRCC like the Breitling would have used.
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Breitling watches transmitted on 121.5 MHz which is far inferior to the modern GPS coordinates / satellite alerting that you get on an iPhone.
 
Mark-1 said:
Yes, that was your point. My point was that the attention it grabbed achieved bugger all.
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The fact is the Flare looks and behaves in such a way that even a person who knows nothing about them understands its something different to a flashlight or LED / Laser etc.
Its not about no-one being at the scene when Police / CG / volunteers arrive .. its the fact that sighting of the flare triggered calls into the CG.

If the calls had led to person(s) being saved - then where's your argument then ? I suppose you'll then say - Pure Luck !
 
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