Replacement for time expired Coastal flare pack

[Refueler]

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.

Excellent - but I have to comment that - your post is literally talking about AFTER the alert / call has come in ...

The flare discussion that Mark-1 sems to have difficulty with - is the flare triggering the call in ...

 

[ylop]

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.

Just in case anyone else is intrigued by the comparison

Hooligan capsized at 0330. At some point before ~ 0340, 3 flares from within the boat/grab bag were set off. One went horizontally the other two launched. The grab bag etc was only available because someone inside the hull retrieved/released it and someone else swam after it. Nobody appears to have seen the flares despite the crew being confident there was shipping around. By around 0357 the crew have managed to launch and board the liferaft, where they find more flares and set off 2 parachutes and 2 handhelds. At 0402 a passing container vessel contacts CG reporting sighting the flares. At 0423 another vessel in the area recovers the crew from the liferaft. So 53 minutes from inversion to rescue, but about 20 minutes from firing the first flare to being spotted/reported. Hooligan did usually have an EPIRB but it was missing from the grab bag during pre-sail prep and could not be found. They had a handheld VHF in the grab bag but it seems to have been lost in the chaos.

Rambler capsized about 1740. An attempted Mayday call was made from handheld VHF when still inside the hull, but the radio was lost whilst escaping the boat. Neither of the grab bags could be accessed which contained "EPIRBS", the boats own EPRIB was inaccessible when inverted. The liferafts were not accessible when inverted. At 1745 two PLBs were activated by survivors on top of the hull. Other competitors passed at 1809 and 1814 and missed whistles and shouts from as close as 400m - visibility was reported as <0.5NM by the lifeboat crew. At 1849 Irish CG were informed of the PLB activation. There was confusion over the registration and ownership of the PLBs, but by 1930 it was escalated to a Mayday. The lifeboat arrived 20:00 and the last of the crew (who had become separated from the boat) were recovered 20:42. So 3 hrs to rescue and 64 minutes before anyone even knew there was a possible problem.

To give another example Tyger V was off Teneriffe when it capsized from loss of keel. They were quickly rescued by another vessel nearby which had witnessed the incident. Within 30 minutes of the capsize, UK CG had received an EPIRB message, although they spent another 10 minutes establishing the vessel was at sea with the owner, by which time the Spanish authorities knew the crew were safe.

But the telling thing about all three of these stories is not which distress system worked best, it is that they ALL had flares, ALL had handheld VHFs, etc, but in the event of a sudden inversion, most of that equipment couldn't be found/accessed/kept hold of whilst people got themselves to a safer situation. The were all some time ago and you MIGHT get faster response from both the tech and the agencies involved now.

 

[Juan Twothree]

Excellent - but I have to comment that - your post is literally talking about AFTER the alert / call has come in ...

The flare discussion that Mark-1 sems to have difficulty with - is the flare triggering the call in ...

My first sentence is in response to the original question.

 

[RunAgroundHard]

Just in case anyone else is intrigued by the comparison ... But the telling thing about all three of these stories is not which distress system worked best, it is that they ALL had flares, ALL had handheld VHFs, etc, but in the event of a sudden inversion, most of that equipment couldn't be found/accessed/kept hold of whilst people got themselves to a safer situation. The were all some time ago and you MIGHT get faster response from both the tech and the agencies involved now.

Excellent summary and conclusion.

 

[Mark-1]

Excellent summary and conclusion.

Yeah, I think ylop might have won post of the month with that. YBW at its best.

 

[yoxyn438]

Time to replace this flare pack, no racing just cruising up to say 7-10 miles offshore. 27foot yacht.
A new flare pack of 2 red Hand 2 orarange smoke and 2 parachute are about £100 and last 3 years. The replacenent seems to be electronic flares with user replaceable batteries..
What is the forums views and experience
David MH

I’ve still kept a basic flare pack on board for short coastal hops like yours. The electronic beacons are handy and avoid the disposal headache, but they’re not always as visible in rough weather and they rely on you keeping the batteries fresh.


For a small yacht going 7 to 10 miles out, a simple kit with reds, smoke, and a parachute is still the most straightforward option. Costs a bit every few years, but you know exactly what you’ve got if things go wrong.

 

[lustyd]

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

The coastguard often put those calls out but with EPIRB/PLB its alongside the start of a rescue operation, they don’t arse about hoping it’s a false alert.

If the PLB in this instance is one of the useless AIS variety then fair enough, but thats not a real PLB.

 

[ylop]

The coastguard often put those calls out but with EPIRB/PLB its alongside the start of a rescue operation, they don’t arse about hoping it’s a false alert.

If the PLB in this instance is one of the useless AIS variety then fair enough, but thats not a real PLB.

In fairness the report doesn't surround themselves in glory here (this was during Fastnet Race in Aug 2011):

They took 21 minutes from getting the PLB message to either making any general shipping comms or tasking any rescue assets. The report says, "At this time, there was a feeling amongst the Coast Guard and RNLI that a PLB may have fallen overboard from a yacht." *. Another vessel filled in the blanks for them about which vessel the PLB came from and it no longer being on AIS. The report doesn't say how long that took - bit it was anoth 39 minutes before they upgraded to a Mayday and tasked a Helo.

We tend to have an image of a signal coming in and claxons going off and people springing into action. It would be fascinating to see what really goes on, because every MAIB report reads somewhat less dramatically than that!

*If they knew it was a PLB and really thought they fell overboard and activated themselves, then they need some retraining; but the name they were searching for wasn't even the right name so I think there probably were some familiarity exercises required - perhaps with info from overseas agencies? It was 2011 so this was definitely not an AIS variety (not that I'd characterise them as useless - the passing boats may well have noticed and the search from the casualties who didn't make it onto the hull would have been quicker if they had that.

 

[lustyd]

The report says, "At this time, there was a feeling amongst the Coast Guard and RNLI that a PLB may have fallen overboard from a yacht." *.

Given that real PLBs don’t auto activate (one recent exception) I can only assume that was actually an AIS beacon, and those are never taken seriously as far as I can tell, which makes sense given how often they activate.
If an EPIRB PLB activation hit an MRCC and was ignored then people should be in prison.

It would be fascinating to see what really goes on,

@Juan Twothree has described it before

 

[Juan Twothree]

Given that real PLBs don’t auto activate (one recent exception) I can only assume that was actually an AIS beacon, and those are never taken seriously as far as I can tell, which makes sense given how often they activate.
If an EPIRB PLB activation hit an MRCC and was ignored then people should be in prison.

@Juan Twothree has described it before

20 minutes to get their act together wasn't very impressive.

The UK Coastguard treats any PLB/EPIRB activation as a distress situation until proved otherwise, so they only have a few minutes to make a decision and start tasking assets.
Their incident management software logs those actions, and what time they happen.

 

[Juan Twothree]

If an EPIRB PLB activation hit an MRCC and was ignored then people should be in prison.

Activations are initially received at Fareham. They then pass details to the relevant MRCC, usually via a flash message.

 

[lustyd]

Activations are initially received at Fareham. They then pass details to the relevant MRCC, usually via a flash message.

Do you mean Falmouth? I thought all UK EPIRB traffic went to Falmouth

 

[lustyd]

Nope, looked it up and I was wrong. Not sure if it changed or if I’ve always misread it with my Cornish brain

 

[Mark-1]

Nope, looked it up and I was wrong. Not sure if it changed or if I’ve always misread it with my Cornish brain

Google is silent on it but I'm sure it used to be Falmouth, or somewhere in that part of the world and moved to Fareham when it opened just before Covid.

 

[ylop]

Given that real PLBs don’t auto activate (one recent exception) I can only assume that was actually an AIS beacon,

I don’t think personal AIS beacons existed in 2011 but had it been an AIS beacon the lifeboat would have seen it - they were in the general area anyway. So too would the other vessels that passed by (the same ones who reported to the CG that the vessel had disappeared from AIS).

But I posted the link to the Irish investigation so you don’t need to guess - the incident arrived with the Irish CG via the UK ARCC in Kinloss, which would be exceptional signal for AIS!!!

and those are never taken seriously as far as I can tell, which makes sense given how often they activate.

I imagine that in the middle of the fastnet race having just gone round the rock and with other vessels nearby that an AIS MoB alert would at least get some attention!

If an EPIRB PLB activation hit an MRCC and was ignored then people should be in prison.

It wasn’t ignored - it was investigated. Probably not at the pace we expect, but it is not unique, there are other reports of the time it takes from receipt to action which run to tens of minutes. When people point out here that it is not instantaneous they are told they are wrong - despite the evidence! A very useful tool that might save your life, but it won’t be instant.

@Juan Twothree has described it before

I am sure by the time his LB is mobilised that there is sufficient cause for concern that everyone is moving quickly.

 

[Juan Twothree]

Nope, looked it up and I was wrong. Not sure if it changed or if I’ve always misread it with my Cornish brain

It's not your brain!

It used to be Falmouth, but it went to the JRCC a few years ago. Five years? Ten? I lose track of time these days.

 

[ylop]

20 minutes to get their act together wasn't very impressive.

The UK Coastguard treats any PLB/EPIRB activation as a distress situation until proved otherwise, so they only have a few minutes to make a decision and start tasking assets.
Their incident management software logs those actions, and what time they happen.

Activations are initially received at Fareham. They then pass details to the relevant MRCC, usually via a flash message.

It was the Irish CG not UK CG who were responsible for coordination. The “hit” was passed to them from Kinloss (this was 2011). Uk response times weren’t always amazing then either Louisa in 2017 led to recommendations to improve the response.

 

[Juan Twothree]

It was the Irish CG not UK CG who were responsible for coordination. The “hit” was passed to them from Kinloss (this was 2011). Uk response times weren’t always amazing then either Louisa in 2017 led to recommendations to improve the response.

I wondered if maybe the Irish CG work to different standards. I know absolutely nothing about them.

 

[lustyd]

I wondered if maybe the Irish CG work to different standards. I know absolutely nothing about them.

In my experience, yes they do. Firstly their radios have more power by a long way (just like the French). Secondly, it’s like talking to NCI so feels less professional in the moment while UK is like talking to parliament and they’ll finish their script even if it kills you.

They are competent and get the job done but it’s certainly a different experience. Day to day I prefer it. In an emergency I think I prefer UK just for the comfort of thinking they have a plan.

 

[Skipper Felice]

That's not quite the case anymore:

iPhone satellite SOS (iPhone 14, September 16, 2022 and newer models, iOS 16.2/16.4 or later). No phone signal needed. SMS based SOS via satellite -> routes to emergency services.

And many iPhones are now water proof too (enough for this sort of use case at least), unsure about the pixels.


Android satellite SOS

• Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro XL, Pixel 9 Pro Fold, and Pixel 10
• S25 etc - coming soon apparently.

The local mountain rescue team had their 1st callout via a watch recently - a brave new world !

M

Can you please explain: All mobile phones relay to land mobile radio networks. In my understanding they have NO electronics to transmit to satelite systems.
This means: With no normal carrier signal / mobile network (more of about 8 km away from shore) there is NO SOS transmission. No iPhone, no other mobile phone, no Android. Signal processing to satelite systems is not possible with the transmitters of normal mobile phones?