which flare pack

I guess if your boat is less than 13.7m (Solas V) then technically you can get away without flares if you are a pleasure vessel, private use only. That said you would definitely be kicking yourself for not spending £50 when you end up getting into a spot of trouble!
 
nigelmercier said:
I'm planning on an SFA* pack. I've got an EPIRB, two DSC radios, and there are flares in the life raft, I don't see the point of having even more explosives on board.

* Sweet FA
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So you prefer to launch your liferaft before your able to get someones attention on the cliffs above the rocks your drifting towards when you have lost power, your batteries are dead and you have just dropped your cell phone over the side in the scramble to get it out of your oilskins?
 
I've removed all the flares from our boat. They are a 19th century solution and IMHO constitute more of a risk in the untrained hands of leisure crews than a safety benefit. They are to all practical purposes small explosives and recent accidents suggest they may be more harm than good when used by untrained leisure crew. There have been enough flare related accidents, injuries and boat fires over the past decade to suggest safer alternatives especially with low cost electronics now widely available (eg EPIRBs, PLBs, DSC VHF, HH devices, lasers, etc). PLBs in particular get off a distress signal anywhere on the globe, with position and local homing, and don't have to be visually noticed unlike flares. EPRIB/PLB will transmit for at least 48hrs unlike the transient nature of a flare. Combine with DSC VHF fixed and HH and you have multiple redundancy.
 
oceanfroggie said:
I've removed all the flares from our boat. They are a 19th century solution and IMHO constitute more of a risk in the untrained hands of leisure crews than a safety benefit. They are to all practical purposes small explosives and recent accidents suggest they may be more harm than good when used by untrained leisure crew. There have been enough flare related accidents, injuries and boat fires over the past decade to suggest safer alternatives especially with low cost electronics now widely available (eg EPIRBs, PLBs, DSC VHF, HH devices, lasers, etc). PLBs in particular get off a distress signal anywhere on the globe, with position and local homing, and don't have to be visually noticed unlike flares. EPRIB/PLB will transmit for at least 48hrs unlike the transient nature of a flare. Combine with DSC VHF fixed and HH and you have multiple redundancy.
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I'm afraid I can't agree with any of that. The GMDSS system is great for some things and awful for others. The transmitting of PLBs for example are almost universally ignored on the bridges of ships and other stations unless their backed up by other means such as a radio transmission as there are literally hundreds of these alarms a day caused by things falling into the water. You should always have a means to communicate distress that does not require batteries or generators as you never know when you will lose both. As you are also taught in survival classes. Things such as smoke floats are a huge aid to helicopter crews and rescuers as the help visually mark the casualty and show wind direction. At five hundred feet above a stormy sea the chopper crews will struggle to find you even if they can see your PLB or EPIRB ping on a radar screen. They won't miss a flare which is why commercial ships must have a Perry Float life ring with a smoke float attached. A white yacht in a white sea is very hard to see from a ship or lifeboat at the same height.
Propellors are another 19th century marine solution to a problem. None of the new fangled alternatives have yet to supersede them. Concern about untrained use is probably best addresed by training.
 
cryan said:
I'm afraid I can't agree with any of that. The GMDSS system is great for some things and awful for others. The transmitting of PLBs for example are almost universally ignored on the bridges of ships and other stations unless their backed up by other means such as a radio transmission as there are literally hundreds of these alarms a day caused by things falling into the water. You should always have a means to communicate distress that does not require batteries or generators as you never know when you will lose both. As you are also taught in survival classes. Things such as smoke floats are a huge aid to helicopter crews and rescuers as the help visually mark the casualty and show wind direction. At five hundred feet above a stormy sea the chopper crews will struggle to find you even if they can see your PLB or EPIRB ping on a radar screen. They won't miss a flare which is why commercial ships must have a Perry Float life ring with a smoke float attached. A white yacht in a white sea is very hard to see from a ship or lifeboat at the same height.
Propellors are another 19th century marine solution to a problem. None of the new fangled alternatives have yet to supersede them. Concern about untrained use is probably best addresed by training.
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rocket flares are pretty much redundant. Satellite PLB transmissions are not ignored. Short range flares useful for the reasons you state. An independent self contained PLB is about £200 now, I'd prefer that to parachute flares if I had to choose.
 
cryan said:
I'm afraid I can't agree with any of that. The GMDSS system is great for some things and awful for others. The transmitting of PLBs for example are almost universally ignored on the bridges of ships and other stations unless their backed up by other means such as a radio transmission as there are literally hundreds of these alarms a day caused by things falling into the water. You should always have a means to communicate distress that does not require batteries or generators as you never know when you will lose both. As you are also taught in survival classes. Things such as smoke floats are a huge aid to helicopter crews and rescuers as the help visually mark the casualty and show wind direction. At five hundred feet above a stormy sea the chopper crews will struggle to find you even if they can see your PLB or EPIRB ping on a radar screen. They won't miss a flare which is why commercial ships must have a Perry Float life ring with a smoke float attached. A white yacht in a white sea is very hard to see from a ship or lifeboat at the same height.
Propellors are another 19th century marine solution to a problem. None of the new fangled alternatives have yet to supersede them. Concern about untrained use is probably best addresed by training.
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But you describe non-leisure boating scenarios. PLBs do not activate when they "fall in" and they are not ignored by global sat monitoring stations. One has to cater for the actual lowest common denominator. Many of today's leisure boaters are no longer experienced nor adequately trained yachtsmen and women, and that is the practical reality today and likely in the future. Modern SAR helicopters have wind instrumentation no longer depending on smoke flares for indication of surface wind direction. Agree one good use for smoke flares is in crowded close proximity traffic when a casualty vessel can be more quickly picked out from a large fleet. But IMHO rockets are obsolete and dangerous in the hands of many of todays inexperienced leisure users. As I said VHF augments PLBs and EPIRBs so one is not depending on one means. It makes no logical sense to discredit a dependancy on electronics, as we all depend 100% on same every time we fly commercially.
 
oceanfroggie said:
I've removed all the flares from our boat. They are a 19th century solution and IMHO constitute more of a risk in the untrained hands of leisure crews than a safety benefit. They are to all practical purposes small explosives and recent accidents suggest they may be more harm than good when used by untrained leisure crew. There have been enough flare related accidents, injuries and boat fires over the past decade to suggest safer alternatives especially with low cost electronics now widely available (eg EPIRBs, PLBs, DSC VHF, HH devices, lasers, etc). PLBs in particular get off a distress signal anywhere on the globe, with position and local homing, and don't have to be visually noticed unlike flares. EPRIB/PLB will transmit for at least 48hrs unlike the transient nature of a flare. Combine with DSC VHF fixed and HH and you have multiple redundancy.
Click to expand...
I have only set one off at RNLI open day, and that was enough to put me off the things for ever. It also seems hit and miss.. you just hope someone is about to see it...hmm,, pretty much the end of the line then.
I wonder with all these leisure boats with these things on borad, who has actually one one in anger...I have never seen one used, though maybe it was behind me ;)
 
oceanfroggie said:
But you describe non-leisure boating scenarios. PLBs do not activate when they "fall in" and they are not ignored by global sat monitoring stations. One has to cater for the actual lowest common denominator. Many of today's leisure boaters are no longer experienced nor adequately trained yachtsmen and women, and that is the practical reality today and likely in the future. Modern SAR helicopters have wind instrumentation no longer depending on smoke flares for indication of surface wind direction. Agree one good use for smoke flares is in crowded close proximity traffic when a casualty vessel can be more quickly picked out from a large fleet. But IMHO rockets are obsolete and dangerous in the hands of many of todays inexperienced leisure users. As I said VHF augments PLBs and EPIRBs so one is not depending on one means. It makes no logical sense to discredit a dependancy on electronics, as we all depend 100% on same every time we fly commercially.
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Ye pays yer money and takes yer chance!

Personally I would not put out to sea without a basic pyro set.
 
cryan said:
The transmitting of PLBs for example are almost universally ignored on the bridges of ships
[...]
chopper crews will struggle to find you even if they can see your PLB or EPIRB ping on a radar screen.
Click to expand...

I agree with you that flares are worth having - but you do seem to be a bit confused about EPIRBs and PLBs. They aren't detected on a ship's bridge (except possibly the homer at short range, but nobody expects that to be generally monitored) and they don't show up on a radar screen. You're thinking of traditional SARTs as used in ships' liferafts for the past few decades.

Pete
 
DougH said:
Would you drive around in your car all the time with a large pack of powerful fireworks in the boot?
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No but then I can get out of my car in the event of a breakdown and walk to the nearest phone. The road is also not likely to pick up my car and smash it against the nearest rocks over and over nor will I likely sink beneath the road and suffocate should I get out.
 
cryan said:
No but then I can get out of my car in the event of a breakdown and walk to the nearest phone. The road is also not likely to pick up my car and smash it against the nearest rocks over and over nor will I likely sink beneath the road and suffocate should I get out.
Click to expand...
Not very likely to smash your boat on the rocks, or sink, either ...;)
 
cryan said:
No but then I can get out of my car in the event of a breakdown and walk to the nearest phone. The road is also not likely to pick up my car and smash it against the nearest rocks over and over nor will I likely sink beneath the road and suffocate should I get out.
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Agreed, but if in deploying your flares one malfunctions and you set the boat on fire what are you going to do then.

Flares rely on someone seeing them and understanding what to do.

The point I was trying to make was not that you would store flares in a car nor that you need them in a road vehicle but that the risk of such devices in a car is very dangerous.

So why would you store such devices on a boat when such excellent alternatives are available.
 
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