Category: Safety & SAR

The first time was the best. I was tootling down the Bay in May when I tested the ACR AquaLink View PLB. I’d already appreciated its high build quality, and how neatly instructions about how to activate its two self test modes and primary distress function are explained right on the casing. Then when I pressed the GPS Test button for five seconds, it was very nice to have the small LCD screen show the procedure step-by-step and advise me to give the antennas a good sky view.  And it was impressive that the GPS — perhaps never used before, or at most tested in Florida — got (and displayed) a position in well less than a minute.  (In fact, the whole test procedure is so quick that I’ve had a hard getting a good photo with the scrolling screen in action.)  But the kicker was how my cell phone buzzed a moment later with a text message confirmation that the beacon’s test signal had made it through the COSPAS-SARSAT satellite system, along with a link to its accurately mapped position…

The new ACR AquaLink View sure looks like the most sophisticated and best performing Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) ever designed.  Built-in buoyancy, 6.3 Watts of 406 MHz distress output, a 66 channel GPS receiver, 30 hours of battery life…the specs go on and on.  But that’s not all.  This PLB is also designed to take maximum advantage of ACR’s new 406Link through-satellite testing service, including its ability to deliver SPOT-like “I’m OK” messages via email and cell phone.  406Link also offers some level of service, even free testing, to the owners of many EPIRBs and PLBs, including lots of models not made by ACR…

One of the great technological and human triumphs of our time has to be the offshore rescue system.  Some details remain unclear — like what sort of sailboat Gloria A Dios was, and what route owner/operator Dennis Clements attempted to single hand from Virginia to the Virgin Islands — but we do know this:  90 minutes after the USCG got the distress signal from his ACR Satellite 2 EPIRB at 5 pm last Saturday night, a C-130 was standing by over the boat 250 miles off Cape Hatteras in nasty full gale conditions.  It was that crew who thermal imaged Glory To God (a sobbering film you can find at the bottom of this USCG page), and who dropped two life rafts when an extra big wave dismasted and then holed her…

Damn it!  This morning the USCG, in classic gov speak, announced the publication of notice of intention to terminate Loran-C.  There’s a lot that’s not mentioned in the release, but my sources say that...

Pirates beware!  The Furuno DRS25A Ultra HD radar and FLIR Voyager II thermal camera shown being installed on the stern of the Maersk Alabama are all about keeping a sharp watch for attackers in small boats.  And there’s another pair at the bow, along with dual monitoring stations within the ship, and lots of redundancy built in…