RYA finally suggest that flares should no longer be carried

[rotrax]

A Mayday or Panpan position broadcast on VHF will need to be plotted (if someone has a chart handy) and a course worked out and there may be several boats in the area -which one is it?

Not really nessesary to plot on a chart.
Most of us will have GPS or a plotter on board.
By comparing the location of the stricken vessel and your own it is pretty simple to work out if you are in a position to render assistance, and in which direction the casualty is in relation to your own position.
Every time we hear a Pan-Pan or Mayday we note the position and see where we are in relation to the casualty on the plotter.
We have never been near enough to help yet-but you never know.

 

[Sandyman]

Sense at last - Horray

Flares seem to have caused more injuries to untrained novice users in the past decade than saving folks from injury. With hindsight carrying 19th century explosive incendiary devices on leisure boats for use by non professionals seems a bit daft considering the more reliable and safer modern alternatives. I stripped our boat of flares five years ago and will not tolerate such hi risk equipment on board again.

High risk equipment ? ? ? you joke of course.

 

[lw395]

On our previous boat we have also had water covering the cabin sole. It was on our first cruise and a pipe had come off a skin fitting while we were all in the cockpit. A bit alarming (actually very alarming) but did not quite take out the batteries.

As regards an emergency small battery, the way I was thinking of doing it (apols for terminology - I am very amateur) - take 12v +ve from main fused VHF switch to another switch near small battery and radio - when this switch is on the power goes to the mini battery and then to the radio. If water starts to rise, throw switch and isolate mini battery and radio. I realise that if the main batteries get taken out before the switch is thrown then the mini battery would go too. Does that make sense ?

One of my boats had an 'emergency VHF battery' It was just switched to power the radio and Decca (!) using a simple two way switch.
Charging was by a schottky diode, about 0.3V drop, which kept the battery adequately, not fully, charged.
The battery was a sealed Yuasa job as found in burglar alarms etc.
These days it's easy to run a GPS from that supply.

TBH, I think a few flares are worth having given their cost.
But I might cut down the number, and they would not be my first choice of distress signal.
I can think of scenarios where I would still want them.

 

[rotrax]

The poor guy who had the end cap of a parachute flare embedded in his stomach when doing a demo is never going to be the same again.

He suffered appalling injuries.

 

[maxi77]

Sense at last - Horray

Flares seem to have caused more injuries to untrained novice users in the past decade than saving folks from injury. With hindsight carrying 19th century explosive incendiary devices on leisure boats for use by non professionals seems a bit daft considering the more reliable and safer modern alternatives. I stripped our boat of flares five years ago and will not tolerate such hi risk equipment on board again.

Perhaps you would care to justify your claims with real data, as far as I am aware very few flare accidents have occurred compared to the number of flare initiated rescues

 

[elton]

Flares seem to have caused more injuries to untrained novice users in the past decade than saving folks from injury.

We only get to hear about the injuries. If they caused more injuries than they saved, I think there'd be some kind of uproar.

 

[KellysEye]

>The RYA is NOT saying flares should no longer be carried. They are simply suggesting it should no longer be mandatory for coded vessels and vessels over x metres.

“In today’s modern age there is no compelling case to support the mandatory requirement of flares as a practical and useful method of initiating a distress alert and location” Stuart Carruthers RYA Cruising Manager.

“The RYA has been shown no persuasive evidence that flares have search and rescue benefits that cannot be provided by modern technology.

"Couple this with the significantly reduced disposal service for flares and the argument for continuing to mandate flares becomes unreasonable and illogical” concludes Stuart.

Reading that they are promoting stopping the use of flares on all boats, it doesn't mention coded vessels.

 

[Storyline]

One of my boats had an 'emergency VHF battery' It was just switched to power the radio and Decca (!) using a simple two way switch.
Charging was by a schottky diode, about 0.3V drop, which kept the battery adequately, not fully, charged.
The battery was a sealed Yuasa job as found in burglar alarms etc.
.....

Why do you need the diode - can you not just have the battery in the circuit all the time ?

 

[maxi77]

Why do you need the diode - can you not just have the battery in the circuit all the time ?

If it is connected all the time, when the main batteries go down so does your emergency battery. The emergency battery needs to be isolated from the main battery

 

[alant]

The poor guy who had the end cap of a parachute flare embedded in his stomach when doing a demo is never going to be the same again.

He suffered appalling injuries.

It wasn't a parachute flare, it was a white handheld!
Also, not an end cap, but the handle + burning flare.

 

[alant]

Sense at last - Horray

Flares seem to have caused more injuries to untrained novice users in the past decade than saving folks from injury. With hindsight carrying 19th century explosive incendiary devices on leisure boats for use by non professionals seems a bit daft considering the more reliable and safer modern alternatives. I stripped our boat of flares five years ago and will not tolerate such hi risk equipment on board again.

How many onboard, have ever been trained?
Even 'professionals', have rarely used them, so could be considered untrained.

When you take friends out sailing, how many show them the flares, or, tell them how they are used?
When did you last handle those on your boat (how many know how to use them when its dark?)?

 

[Kukri]

I have used a white handheld flare in good earnest. I wrote this on this forum and was accused of being a liar by a fellow who has done long distances on a steel boat and is therefore a Superior Being. I was not lying, and it still rankles. I intend to carry on carrying flares, both a RORC pack and a couple of whites clipped inside the companionway. A flare is very easy to see; a boat or a liferaft is not.

There is room in a RORC pack plastic canister for a motorcycle gauntlet and it is common sense to put one in there with the flares, no?

 

[Kukri]

How many onboard, have ever been trained?
Even 'professionals', have rarely used them, so could be considered untrained.

When you take friends out sailing, how many show them the flares, or, tell them how they are used?
When did you last handle those on your boat (how many know how to use them when its dark?)?

A friend runs a training centre for professional seamen in another country and insists that his students fire them in training. He was horrified to find that, because, we are told, of Elfin Safety, UK training centres training officers just "demonstrate how they should be used" without actually firing one.

 

[prv]

"Couple this with the significantly reduced disposal service for flares and the argument for continuing to mandate flares becomes unreasonable and illogical” concludes Stuart.

Reading that they are promoting stopping the use of flares on all boats, it doesn't mention coded vessels.

It's implicit, because on most boats they never have been mandatory in the first place.

Pete

 

[prv]

A friend runs a training centre for professional seamen in another country and insists that his students fire them in training. He was horrified to find that, because, we are told, of Elfin Safety, UK training centres training officers just "demonstrate how they should be used" without actually firing one.

The sailing school based at our yard certainly has its trainees fire hand flares for practice - they all line up along the travelift slip and blaze away. Firing a parachute flare in a built-up area near the sea is more problematic, so they don't do that.

I suppose you could eliminate the false-alarm aspect by having people fire white illume flares instead (assuming they exist in the same format as distress rockets) but you still have the problem that they come down burning, potentially causing injury or damage. You could have special practice flares made, which launch a dummy rocket that flies but doesn't light up, but the benefit is probably not worth the cost.

Pete

 

[Storyline]

If it is connected all the time, when the main batteries go down so does your emergency battery. The emergency battery needs to be isolated from the main battery

Got it - thanks

 

[alant]

The sailing school based at our yard certainly has its trainees fire hand flares for practice - they all line up along the travelift slip and blaze away. Firing a parachute flare in a built-up area near the sea is more problematic, so they don't do that.

I suppose you could eliminate the false-alarm aspect by having people fire white illume flares instead (assuming they exist in the same format as distress rockets) but you still have the problem that they come down burning, potentially causing injury or damage. You could have special practice flares made, which launch a dummy rocket that flies but doesn't light up, but the benefit is probably not worth the cost.

Pete

Which one is that then?

Practice flares already available in most sailing schools.

 

[macd]

It's implicit, because on most boats they never have been mandatory in the first place.

+1...abundantly, self-evidently implicit.

 

[oldbilbo]

I'd think more of the RYA and its services to yotties if that august org constructed a brick-built outbuilding in their large carpark, into which said yotties could deposit their out-of-date flares for disposal...... That could provide occasional opportunity for a little fun and comment!

 

[lw395]

It's implicit, because on most boats they never have been mandatory in the first place.

Pete

They are mandatory for many/most racing boats, including dayboats at Cowes Week for instance.