Yesterday while my wife and I were having our cuppa and a snack on the beach we heard on VHF radio what turned out to be a search and rescue exercise carried out by the local volunteer marine rescue organisation in Port Stephens. The scenario was a small craft calling "faintly" for help of an unknown nature from an undisclosed location ie. They were lost with an injured person on board and a failed motor. The rescue people were unable to establish a solid fix using RDF and therefore had 3 boats perform various search patterns in different locations on the bay. The bay is not huge it measures about 10 Nm from heads to back but has many bays inlets and islands in it, it also has 2 major rivers empting into as well as many smaller creeks. Check it out in Google earth by plugging Port Stephens, Australia in the search bar.

We do the majority of our weekly paddling in this area and up until yesterday I was fairly confident that carrying a mobile phone in dry storage and a waterproof marine VHF radio of good quality and with the max 5 watts of power in my PFD were going to be enough if we needed assistance. Our greatest threats are more likely to sustaining injuries like snake bite or twisted ankles etc then on water risks although we still train regularly for these and the risks do still exist.

Now I understand that this was a training exercise and in a real emergency the help of other craft would be sought also a rescue helo may have been brought in and perhaps a more experienced co ordinator would be in charge but on the day this search went on for more than an 1.5 hours before the craft was found. During the week there is very little recreational traffic on the water and the commercial dolphin watch boats do their thing in the eastern end.

Now carrying a handheld radio as my primary means of emergency contact seems totally inadequate and when we return from a paddling holiday in Scotland in June a PLB is going to be the very next purchase.

Anyone else have some thoughts on this.

Cheers

Bill

Bill,

Thank you for sharing your experience it certainly points out how easy it might be to be missed by VHF and cell phone in more remote touring areas. With the cost and size of PLBs and EPIRB coming down it certainly makes sense for paddlers to be including these devices in their paddling safety gear. The February 2008 issue of Sea Kayaker had an article about a rescue that took place on Lake Michigan. Along with the article was a sidebar that explained why we want to be purchasing a PLB or EPIRB that transmits GPS coordinates rather than relying on satellite triangulation, even though it might cost a bit more.

From the other side of your experience I think it shows that all boaters need to be maintaining a VHF watch when underway. We might just be the radio that is able to pick up that weak signal and relay it to a rescue service or even respond ourselves.

I spent my teen years on a sail training vessel and my early 20's as a mate on tugboats in both cases maintaining a radio watch was standard practice when underway. When I started recreational sailing the silence was too great a call and I sailed never listening to the radio, only turning it on when I needed something. Over the years having read accounts like yours and gaining maturity I now take my responsibility to other boaters more seriously and, much as I don't like the background noise, maintain a radio watch most of the time when underway. I'd hate to have someone come to harm because my desire for silence was more important than my responsibility as a boater.

I paddle the Canadian BC coast and I have a West Marine, waterproof (JIS7 spec) handheld marine band radio. I asked a Coast Guard watch commander about how reliable I could expect such a (5 watt) handheld to be, given that I would be using the rig sitting in a kayak or more likely, actually floating in the water in which case the distance from my antenna to the horizon would be either four kilometers or perhaps a kilometer or two --- he stressed the importance of using the full 5 watt output setting, not the battery saving, 1 watt setting in the event of a "M'Aidez" (MayDay) call.

Sure, if reception is fine, then drop down to one watt, but don't count on being able to get out at the one watt setting, for the initial contact use the whole five watt enchilada.

This is why I have multiple radios, one, a Yaesu FT60R I use for the HAM repeater chains, weather broadcasts, etc, and I save my West Marine HT's battery's charge for one thing only --- the emergency MayDay call. I don't even turn it on unless I need to make that critical call, that way I know I've got the whole battery charge for emergency use --- I don't chit-chat with it, or even listen to WX, I use my other rig for that.

Having a HAM radio license, I've found out some interesting things about VHF signals. They're not like HF signals which, under the right circumstances, will bounce off the ionosphere back down to earth well over the horizon, even to the far ends of the earth --- VHF signals do not do this, they are line-of-sight only. Nevertheless, as long as the antennas can "see" each other, you can get phenomenal range. If the transmitter and reciever are on mountaintops say, 120 km (or more) apart, as long as there's just air in between the antennas the signal will get out just fine. The problem with transmitting from a kayak is that you're so low on the water that your RF energy goes flying up above the horizon, perhaps above the coastie's antennas...

Here in BC, most of the coast is covered well, with marine repeaters on almost every mountaintop. The problems come when you go deep into our steep-sided fjords, of which there are many --- then all of a sudden you'll find that although you can get out to the yacht a kilomter away across the reach, there's no WX, and there's no response on 156.8 mHz (ch 16) unless the yacht across the way is monitoring because the mountains block the RF.

Last summer, after waiting almost a week for the right conditions, I crossed Queen Charlotte Strait to Burnett Bay and was snug as a bug in a rug in my tent and 'bag when 156.8 mhz crackled to life as the Coasties did a body recovery trip on an unfortunate kayaker who capsized, couldn't recover and died trying to make Hansford Island from telegraph Cove --- if only he'd had a marine VHF ...


Hence, if you're planning a trip up the Gardner Canal, you better be prepared to answer your own MayDay because Bro, there ain't nobody on the other end of that 156.8 mhz distress channel ...

Sad but true.

I've been considering 3 different ACR EPIRBs. The cost differential between a basic model and the Aquafix is substantial; the newer Microfix with built in GPS is even more.
Of course, any of them would seem cheap if you ever needed to use it. Alternatives such as the SPOT which require annual fees seem more costly in the long run, and ACR ads suggests they are less reliable. Most of my paddling is on rivers and lakes, with occasional trips to the Atlantic and plans for the Great Lakes sometime soon. Is an EPIRB security overkill? Is a VHF adequate for my infrequent salty or big fresh excursions? Opinions?

Eric,

If you scroll up and read my first post on this you will see what I think. We all carry emergency gear in the hope we will never use it. While a waterproof marine vhf is useful, I use it to get weather updates during the day and you might be able to contact emergency services while your on the water I wouldn't rely on it totally. One of my concerns is snake bite or maybe a twisted ankle when we are on one of the small islands we frequent. vhf is line of sight which may mean I have to hike around to the otherside where I have clear vision to someone. A plb with GPS has no such problem. The other up side is that the SAR in your part of the world has all your details and can make rescue a much quicker and safer process. Save the extra pennies and buy the best you can and hopefully it will never be taken of you pocket.

Cheers

Bill

I had read all the posts, but was looking for more input on SPOT vs PLB and VHF reception probabilities in Atlantic states such as Florida, Carolina, and Virginia. Hunting online,I found some good tests and evaluations of PLBs from Equipped to Survive, along with a review of SPOT in GPS magazine. The PLB's greater overall reliabilty and superior on-shore capabilities, both of which are prominent in your comments, were the deciding factors. I ended up ordering an AquaFix with onboard GPS about an hour ago. Not the latest or the smallest but not far behind, either. Thanks for starting the topic, and for your prompt response to my post.

By the way,here in central Kentucky, we have mostly copperheads for poisonous snakes. They do swim, and some say they occasionally slither on to a boat. Other parts of the state have water moccasins and rattlesnakes, too. None of them, however, compares remotely to a brown or any of the other deadly snakes you guys have. May you never meet the wrong end of one!

Hope you get in some good holiday paddling down under. Our weather has been wintry and wet, but they're predicting a warm spell Friday and Saturday.

Have a Happy Christmas,

Eric