the basics for survival?

[hellosailor]

"a quick call to ACR in Florida confirms that damage due to lighting strikes is not covered under the warranty for ACR EPIRBs."

I'll bet the folks at ACR are still rolling with laughter over that one. Really.

Cole, what on earth have you ever heard of that was expressly warrantied against Acts of God and lightning strikes? Even granite tombstones aren't warranteed against that. No wait, I've got it. Lightning arrestors! Polyphasers are warranteed against lightning damage, but only for 10 years. Or is there anything else?

[goboatingnow]

"a quick call to ACR in Florida confirms that damage due to lighting strikes is not covered under the warranty for ACR EPIRBs."

Neither are humans

[colemj]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Cole, what on earth have you ever heard of that was expressly warrantied against Acts of God and lightning strikes? Even granite tombstones aren't warranteed against that. No wait, I've got it. Lightning arrestors! Polyphasers are warranteed against lightning damage, but only for 10 years. Or is there anything else?

Yandina battery combiners. Unconditional lifetime warranty for any reason at all, and they expressly mention lightning. Doesn't even have to be original owners. Ours were taken out by a lightning strike and they were covered no questions asked. Actually, ours were "West Marine" branded ones, but supplied OEM by Yandina. West Marine wouldn't cover them. Yandina would - no questions asked.

Also, I have heard that there was a company selling those bottle brush lightning things at the top of the mast who will replace them free when they are destroyed by lightning.

Mark

[Delancey]

Okay, so we've established I am a lunatic. Let's channel this crazy energy to good use.

Consider you are the victim of a perfect storm of titantic proportions along with a dozen other boats. Most of whom are fishing boats or other commercial vessels with the fate of many families shoreside dependent their rescue.

Of greater significance is the fact that you are the furthest removed of all the vessels in distress. Unfortunately, your own vessel founders and you find yourself adrift in your life raft.

Fortunately, when you push the button on your ACRONYM, the light flashes green, and a signal is sent to a satellite and from there to the appropriate command and a response is triggered and a second ACRONYM is dispatched to find the first.

Unfortunately, because of the vagaries of the storm, the burden of so many vessels in need of assistance, and your extreme distance from available assets, the second ACRONYM isn't able to locate you and render assistance before the battery dies on the first.

When they do finally come looking for you, it is starting from a last known position and they are left guessing as to possible drift from whatever time elapses after the transmission stops.

Now remember, they're not a 100% without transmission, but we've promised "they" will get us with a week. What are you going to do to give yourself options for staying alive until the ACRONYM comes and pucks you from the sea?

As has been suggested the life raft itself is subject to failure and you need to keep it afloat until the rescue arrives.

Is there room in your bag for a foam plug and some zip-ties? What's that cost? Fifteen bucks? Might come in handy to help stop your boat from sinking in the first place.

And when salvation finally does arrive might it be worth your effort to have maximized your available resources for being located?

You already presumably have some signals included in the life raft and hopefully you were able to recover the ones from the boat, but wouldn't it be nice to have a couple extra smokes and that $100 water proof laser that is good for 72 hours on a single set of batteries in your bag as a back-up?

Maybe it's not such a bad idea to have your resources spilt up and not all in one basket?

I wonder if the laser pointer wouldn't be handy to have on board anyway as a means of identifying flotsam, debris, or other points of interest to other crew members day to day.

As in "can't you see it? It's there over there!" with a vague hand pointing and no real tangible exchange of information as to where specifically something is located.

Since your trying to optimize your changes of getting rescued, what if you include in you bag a compact pair of binoculars to help with identifying potential ANCRONYMs in your area so that your subsequent signals produce the best possible results?

Seems like a spare set of binoculars tucked away in a bail-out-bad could be of potential use to anybody going on a voyage of any distance. How about a couple pairs of extra sunglasses to ensure you are alert and attentive in your watch-keeping throughout the day?

Really, is that too match to be considered? Is that so unworthy the effort?

[colemj]

Again, absolutely nobody has mentioned not being prepared to abandon ship and live for a few days. Just the opposite - all of us have proposed just that.

Much of what you list is in our ditch bag - binoculars, sun and reading glasses, laser pointer/signaler (and mirror), along with a large brick of AA batteries to run GPS, laser, DSC radio, etc. I doubt the plugs and zip ties will help with a liferaft air leak. Maybe an all-out puncture from those spear guns everyone loves in their raft and have much practice with...

But your disaster premise is infinitesimally small - much better off buying a lottery ticket. That has been my problem and point with this thread from the start.

Mark

[Delancey]

Great, I am happy for you for having all that stuff in your ditch bag. How imaginative. Thanks for sharing. Thanks for not holding back any longer with you excellent contribution.

You're absolutely right, btw. No one has said that one shouldn't be prepared to abandon ship and live for a few days.

However, between you and goboatingnow, what you have variously said is that one may have to wait as much as a week for rescue and conflictingly you have also said that one needn't plan for anything more than pushing a button and receiving assistance within a few days. Unless you are really remote, in which case it could take longer.

Further, between the two of you, you have advised specifically against making any preparations beyond planning on pushing a button as being superfluous and a wasted effort, while simultaneously dismissing tangible shortcomings of your precious systems as unlikely and therefore somehow invalid.

All the while, parading behind a banner that says nothing in life is guaranteed, but somehow pushing a button is? So don't bother with any contingencies beyond that?

I understand goboatingnow has some kind of professional chip on his shoulder when it comes to SAR services but I am not really sure what has you so twisted up. Maybe I crossed you somewhere on a different thread and you have it in for me? You don't seem very memorable to me so sorry about that.

As you have stated, you find the premise of the thread bothersome. That's cool I can work with that but hearing you cry about it more than once gets a bit old. Why not just go somewhere else and bother people who care?

If you decide have something to gain by hanging around being obstinate, that's cool to. Be advised I really don't care either way what you do. That said, if you have some constructive contribution to the discussion it will certainly be appreciated.

Oh, and if you see your "friend" Charlie, tell him I said hi!

[Delancey]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

The key today is not to plan to survive for long periods at sea

Sounds like a great plan! Nice to know you are a SAR professional? I can see why the last thing you would want to do is to promote people planning on surviving, not much of a paycheck in that is there?

[colemj]

There you go again with the labeling and ad hominems.

"Obstinate", "bothering people", "crying", "unconstructive", "twisted up", "have it in for you".

All because I have a different point of view and brought that to your discussion? You can't address and debate those points directly instead of slapping them with a pejorative label and ignoring them?

Up to a week is a few days compared to months. Nowhere have I stated that one does not need to plan further than pushing a button. Nowhere - prove me wrong on that or stop saying it (and retract your statement, if you are decent).

Lightning strikes, epirb damage during the course of a passage, and abandoning boats are low probability events. To point out that all three happening at once is infinitesimally small is simply understanding statistics and numerical scales. You still have not addressed liferaft failure rates. These are much higher than what you are afraid of with electronics, but you seem comfortable with that probability risk.

Don't know what your point about Charlie is. He and his family are on the hard next to us right now doing boat work. It was humorously coincidental that you included a post of his when he was right next to me. If you actually know him, I will be glad to pass along your greeting. If you don't know him, it would be silly.

Mark

[Delancey]

Mark,

Labeling my reasoning as ad hominem doesn't make it falacious. This post started with a simple question "I am curious to know what people are packing in their bail-out-bags these days?" That's all, just a simple question?

If I understand correctly your position is that people needn't be bothered to plan on spending very significant period of time surviving in a life raft if they are properly equipped to communicate with the required resources.

I totally respect that, but I wish you hadn't waited to answer the question stated in the OP until post #110.

In post #109 I tried to offer a solution for life raft failure and in response you question life raft failure rates. To me that seems like an ad hominem if there ever was one which makes me confused about your motives and makes me wonder if you aren't just goofing around, which is fine.

Nonetheless, I am sure you are a great guy. If I see you out there someday I'll buy you dinner. We might find we have more in common that would have been imagined. Or not. Who knows? I am willing to give it a try.

Cheers!

[colemj]

Besides labeling your responses as ad hominem, I pointed out the specific pejoratives. That does make them fallacious. Your reasoning would have been true if you had addressed the points and refrained from belittlement based on your projected and mistaken beliefs of my points and motives.

A difference in opinion to whether a plug and zip tie will be useful in liferaft leaks is not an ad hominem attack (look that phrase up if you don't believe me). It is simply a difference in opinion. I addressed that difference not by questioning life raft failures as you state I did, but by simply pointing out that solution would only be applicable to an all-out puncture. Reading accounts of people in liferafts, all out punctures have never been the problem - leaky seams and leaky fabric in general have been the problems. A plug and zip tie will not help with those. If your opinion differs from that, I am happy to accommodate and discuss it without projecting mean things onto you or deflecting it.

When one starts a thread, one cannot police it and demand that only specific responses be given. I came into this thread rather late and responded to a specific poster about some specific points. The fact that I did not start with listing what is in our ditch bag may not sit well with you, but it is in the normal nature of forum threads. This thread quickly moved away from a dry listing of stores and into a more interesting area of SAR and how much preparedness is necessary. Which is the point where I entered.

Mark

[Delancey]

Oh, what the heck? I'll buy ya a couple of drinks too!

Cheers!

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Delancey

Sounds like a great plan! Nice to know you are a SAR professional? I can see why the last thing you would want to do is to promote people planning on surviving, not much of a paycheck in that is there?

You can't beleive how insulting that remark is to all all volunteer SAR system.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

I suppose someone should point out that "new" EPIRBs have the capability to actually send a LIVE TEST MESSAGE all the way through the system and back to your own internet email account, so one can actually TEST THE SYSTEM and make sure that the EPIRB is actually working.

In 2009, the vast majority of EPIRBs had a test button that basically just tested the test light. There was no way to know if the damned thing actually was getting a message out to the satellites, much less if it was sending a position.

The old-fashioned test button was and is just a placebo. If you've just got one EPIRB, it really should be capable of a live test, with confirmation, all the way through.

Did I miss something? Or forget it? Or did the OP never qualify where he wanted a survival kit for? That kinda matters, when you're planning.

Again this facility is only available on the American landmass

[goboatingnow]

Delancey, rather then attacking everyone. Perhaps you could outline your understanding of how modern rescue at sea works and how you have prepared best for it.

I'd like to hear your understanding as compared to others telling you.

Dave

[Delancey]

Dave,

My sincere apologies. I felt the air was a bit stuffy in here attempted to inject some levity into the situation with a comment I expected to be received as tongue-in-check, but that attempt failed and in hindsight I can see why so I am sorry about that.

With regards to you question my understanding is that SAR at sea starts with me pushing a button on my ACRONYM, or back-ups ACRONYMs as required, and another ANCRONYM will come and get and I can sit back and relax until help arrives.

I think this is all great but the reason I belabor the acronym thing is to drive home a point. We use acronyms to describe things that are inherently complex. My personal experience is that things that are inherently complex are prone to not always working harmoniuosly.

Because of this fact I seek to equip myself when I go to see with the best possible selection of tools to meet my needs form the very high-tech to the most basic. Because of this I am castigated as some backwards thinking romantic.

My question remains, what are people packing in their bail-out-bags these days?

Cheers