RunAgroundHard
Well-Known Member
RYA SafeTrx will stop at the end of December.
Safety platform closing – how to prepare and stay safe at sea.
Safety platform closing – how to prepare and stay safe at sea.
RYA SafeTrx Is Closing Down 31 December 2025
- Thread starter RunAgroundHard
- Start date
ylop
Well-Known Member
Interesting - whilst I can see that there are lots of other ways to track a position etc, I don't know of any others which do the interesting feature for me that safetrx offered - sending a text to prompt your shore contacts to call for help once you go overdue. I know of an incident (in the mountains rather than at sea) where the "shore contact" wasn't at home, didn't pay much attention to time and it was only where they got home three hours later they realised they hadn't been contacted. In reality probably made no difference, as the injuries were probably not survivable.
RunAgroundHard
Well-Known Member
Indeed, my phone will call my wife if I have crashed my car, motorbike. A friend was called by his son's phone when he dropped his bike down the tenement stairs by accident. So there are alternatives. Also, a lot of folks I know who canoe use Garmin In Reach and the Iridium Go platform for routine texting and emergency contact. Of course, the advance of PLBs could be considered to have superseded SafeTrx in numbers and effectiveness.
Me, "Darling your phone is ringing."
My ex nurse, wife, "That's okay, I think we will both bleed out in about a minute."
Mark-1
Well-Known Member
Well that's clear as mud.
So the "CG66 style" functionality is going to be transferred to the CG. Does that mean it will no longer be possible to update it? It seems to be that both the app and the website are going so essentially there is no "CG66 style" service at all now? Or will the website remain?
So the "CG66 style" functionality is going to be transferred to the CG. Does that mean it will no longer be possible to update it? It seems to be that both the app and the website are going so essentially there is no "CG66 style" service at all now? Or will the website remain?
dunedin
Well-Known Member
It is just a guess, but it sounds like the MCA haven’t been given much notice so the only maintenance process for the interim database is an internal one - hence the email to send changes.
They will need a self service maintenance system, but that won’t happen overnight. So unless they had a lot more warning, this will be only semi functional for the next year or so methinks.
RunAgroundHard
Well-Known Member
I think the data will be retained in a database. I assume that the CG could look up this database, but they might not. I will be deleting my SafeTrx account as I have decided that I no longer want my data to be stored on a database of unknown functionality.
wonkywinch
Well-Known Member
I contacted the RYA several/many times to report the issue with the app reporting "no data connection" which wasn't true. I never got a response so I'll also be saving myself £59 when my renewal is due.
ylop
Well-Known Member
You'll be saving £59 on membership because you didn't get a response to an email about a perceived bug in a free product they made available to non-members FOC, which is not actually made by the RYA just badged for them?
wonkywinch
Well-Known Member
I'm having a general clean up in subscriptions that I've been signed up to for the last 5-10 years and not seeing a benefit from. It's frightening when you add up all those little subs.
The only people who trouble me since I stopped my subs are the TV licensing people. For 4 years I get a cyclic letter each month that ends with "you've left us with no choice but to initiate the final stages of our investigation". That's not going well then, they've never knocked on my door nor found out my name isn't "The Occupier".
Back to the RYA, I'm having trouble seeing the benefits but will review prior to renewal date. It was annoying having to contact them to have the autorenew switched off rather than being able to sort that myself in the membership profile part of their website.
Stemar
Well-Known Member
I decided that the RNLI was a better use for my money a long time ago.
seeSimon
Well-Known Member
Disappointing to first learn of this loss of service/capability here, not via the actual RYA!
Or indeed via those paid to sell and implement this system.
And barely a month's notice.
this says much...imho...
Shutdown/withdrawal Also explains why the same lazy @rses have not been bothering to respond to queries or complaints...this perhaps says even more?
Last edited:
ylop
Well-Known Member
Both the RYA and MCGA have quite publicly announced this via social media. Its a little surprising no email to registerred users - but without reading the entire privacy notice in detail they may not have permission (or we individually may not have given permission) for such messages.
You accepted an End User License Agreement which gave them the right to terminate immediately. Given it is a free product that is totally normal.
The RYA social media people have replied to other people today and it seems a factor in the decision is the producers of Safetrx have undergone a change of ownership and want people to use a paid product!
ashtead
Well-Known Member
You would have thought if it does improve safety then some form of government funding might be available but maybe research has shown it serves has minimal benefit? I have no idea as to benefits but perhaps others know more. I guess if safety’s want a licence fee it would be modest in gov spending terms.
ylop
Well-Known Member
Presumably the RYA / MCGA know how many times in the lifetime of the service it has resulted in a rescue? I dare say you could ask the CG under a Freedom of Information request. My gut feel is it is probably small - it encourages responsible people to be even more cautious, and responsible people have a primary means of calling for help before rather than the fall back of being reported overdue.
lustyd
Well-Known Member
You don’t have to consent as this is a message about the service and therefore explicitly allowed under the various laws.
I don’t see why we can’t use the same database as for border control. Many of us already keep details updated there and it has a genuine useful feature of triggering foreign travel forms. Presumably we’ll now be paying for yet another database from public funds and asked to keep details in two places.
ylop
Well-Known Member
Well we can probably debate that - they can still only use data for the purpose it was originally collected for; the need for consent is a side issue (and usually the wrong legal basis for processing) but you are assuming that the system is structured to allow the RYA (who aren’t going to have raw access to the DB) to access and send messages to all users. I’ve worked in lots of systems where extracting a list of all users email addresses required engineering level access as a safeguard against someone doing something stupid.
Those of us who never leave the country by boat might be less keen on that - bearing in mind CG66/Safetrx encourage everyone from Sea Kayaks and Dinghies to register the details. Having never had reason to use it - I wonder if it has all the fields HMCG might desire. That said, I’m not sure how useful the whole concept is in 2025 - it certainly doesn’t stop them asking a lot of the same info by VHF or Phone when you call for help.
An HMCG message last night implied you will update details by emailing them!!!
dunedin
Well-Known Member
Only a tiny proportion of UK boaters will “go foreign” (YBW is hardly an unbiased sample of UK boaters, as tend to be bigger boats and cover more miles).
And the data content of the CG66 style safety data is massively different from the ePCR boat data. So a non starter.
lustyd
Well-Known Member
My point was it’s an existing and working system. Continually spending millions reinventing wheels is bankrupting the country, I was just saying we have better things to spent that money on than more consultancy.
lustyd
Well-Known Member
No, data can be used for other purposes if they are legal, and there is no legal barrier to keeping users informed about the system being closed in any law I’m aware of. GDPR explicitly allows it, for instance.
Whether it’s feasible is another matter as you rightly point out.
st599
Well-Known Member
The sPCR system works well for vessels with a single owner. It's barely usable for a club without breaching GDPR.