Electronic Flare USCG Approved

[Prairie 36]

Technically Electronic VDS are not USCG approved but accepted as an equivalent. These devices are compliant with the RTCM standard. I have had one on a small boat used in coastal waters for several years. It is a Weems and Plath brand. Make sure you keep extra batteries handy. I would want more VDSs for offshore as the SOLAS parachute flares.

[armand.seguin]

Hi all,
Yes, Weems & Plath no longer market the Sirius LED flare. Sirius is themselves marketing a newer version. A good guess is that W & P and Sirius simply could not agree on $.

As today's batteries often have "expire" dates several years off, my personal stock of Duracell C (which both W & P and Orion use) expire in 2028. I see little reason to change batteries "yearly," and could foresee causing harm to the units by simply "messing with" them to open, replace batteries yearly and reassemble. After all, you can at least briefly test them by turning them on.
Regards,
Armand

[paul2884]

Originally Posted by Clivevon

Also interested in following this. Its a pain (no pun intended for UK readers) buying a full set of offshore flares every 3 years. Of course I keep the old ones as well - disposing of them when they are 9 years old. I just keep them out of sight & hope the French authorities are satisfied just to see the in-date ones.
My thinking is that if I ever needed them for real, I would rather have more flares rather than less,. But the red colour might only be 95% red instead of the full 100% . AW shucks, better ditch that then....
Obviously no-one is happy carting around this much highly inflammable material, but I havent yet seen an electronic one that convinced me to switch yet... & I have looked.

Same here, having seen traditional flares at night they are really bright! The led ones are great and and work for hours we have one for the tender but they dont light up the whole area in a bright red glow so are less likely to attract attention? I like to carry both (even if some are a bit out of date)