MOB - Ideas for Quick Location

[surfmachine]

Ahoy, found an email address and bingo, 848 aud for the alarm. Seems the perfect solution to a very sticky problem for me.

When sailing from Langkawi to the Banyak Islands in Sumatra, I often have green crew aboard, only 2 of us. So, if one falls over whilst on watch, this system would enable me to recover them fairly easily, as it gives a location via the built in gps. They also carry a waterproof VHF and a personal EPIRB with a locator beacon that notifies the authorities in Australia, who notify the indo's, who do ??????????? Actually not much use at all in these waters?

So I can find them or they can find me? A local solution.

Perfect?.... Keith.

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by surfmachine

Ahoy, I cannot actually find anyone to sell me mobilalert crewsafe v100 mob beacon in Australia.

You tried these guys?

Buy Crewsafe V100 in Australia and New Zealand | Mobilarm - Man overboard safety systems

Bum bag with smoke flare, pencil rocket flares and a self inflating one of these would be good


as well as wearing a self inflating lifejacket/harness, clipped on so as not to go over in the first place.

[David_Old_Jersey]

My wish list would combine a GPS with a VHF and with a Mobile phone -with a (large) MOB button (that sends location back to vessel - and automatically updates every few minutes or so)...once in the water cold fingers not so good with the usual buttons.

The reason for the Mobile phone is that makes folk far more likely to keep on them (indeed some folks need to have them surgically removed!) and becomes a piece of equipment that folk get very familiar with before they really need it!

Being able to float would also be nice .


FWIW I do like the inflatable Divers sausage idea, downside is that with no tank of air would either require a lot of puff to inflate or own bottle.......but make the bottle (and sausage) big enough - and use helium and the MOB could float above the sea level, would make pick up easier - and perhaps a chance for the MOB to check the masttop fittings

[hummingway]

Originally Posted by Wotname

All this technology exists and most of it (if not all) is in the public domain so it just takes someone smarter than me to pt it together in one package. It could be housed in a small waterproof module at the base of the antenna and the only wiring would be power, an audio output to a speaker mounted anywhere and a RS 232 serial bus to the nav instrumentation. It would need to mounted as high as possible. Current draw would be quite low until triggered. Price could kept reasonable if say such receivers were mandated on off shore racing fleets as economies of scale would kick in.

ACR SARLink Personal Locator Beacon - GPS Central Canada

I think that rather going the route you propose a better solution would be to use them the way they are currently designed. Instead of trying to capture the gps uplink use a sat phone and call search and rescue for the co-ordinates and then use the 121.5 signal to triangulate. The gps co-ordinates can let you get close to the MOB but you may not be able to get a visual on them so might need to triangulate.

[medicrene]

My wife and I sail doublehanded and we have a specific plan in place. First, we wear a small bag on our wait that has basic stuff including a waterproof VHF radio, personal EPIRB and a flare gun (as well as other items all sewn with lanyards to the bag). We are less concerned about the situation where a MOB is witnessed, but are more concerned about a situation where you come on deck and find your partner is missing.

In this case, it is the boat that fires the first signal flare. This lets the MOB know that the boat is now aware that you are missing. After that, the MOB fires a flare to signal his/her location. If the MOB were to fire flares while the person below is sleeping, it would not do much good. Our plan is a bit more detailed and includes immedatily activating the EPIRB as soon as the person hit the water (it can always be cancelled later). High tech is always good, but very expensive and requires a solo sailor to be looking at equipment rather than the ocean and the MOB.

Has anyone else got a plan like this?

The Witchdoctor

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by medicrene

My wife and I sail doublehanded and we have a specific plan in place. First, we wear a small bag on our wait that has basic stuff including a waterproof VHF radio, personal EPIRB and a flare gun (as well as other items all sewn with lanyards to the bag). We are less concerned about the situation where a MOB is witnessed, but are more concerned about a situation where you come on deck and find your partner is missing.

In this case, it is the boat that fires the first signal flare. This lets the MOB know that the boat is now aware that you are missing. After that, the MOB fires a flare to signal his/her location. If the MOB were to fire flares while the person below is sleeping, it would not do much good. Our plan is a bit more detailed and includes immedatily activating the EPIRB as soon as the person hit the water (it can always be cancelled later). High tech is always good, but very expensive and requires a solo sailor to be looking at equipment rather than the ocean and the MOB.

Has anyone else got a plan like this?

The Witchdoctor

Sounds well thought out to me, except only that I would be somewhat skeptical about the reliability of pen-type (is that what you're using?) flares, or any other flares, for that matter, fired by a person floating in the water. In any kind of roughish weather I would think that it would be pretty much impossible.

Do you each have a VHF in each waist bag? How do you keep them charged? Do they have DSC?

As I wrote above, I think DSC VHF on your person for MOB is terrific, but it should be a purpose-made one which is very compact (I would like for it to be about the size of my ResQLink PLB), and which has long-life lithium AA batteries so you don't have to worry about keeping it charged.

I have a PLB in my lifejacket on a lanyard, which will be pretty useful in the English Channel where the rescue services are so efficient that they might be able to get a copter to you before your crew can pick you up in the boat. But the PLB does nothing for the crew of your boat, unless you have a 121mhz directional receiver (which I incidentally do).


Incidentally, on the helicopter rescue of MOB cases, I saw the most incredible thing last year -- heard a DSC and a Mayday call for a MOB just outside of Cowes Harbor. I was sailing through the North Channel, near Hurst Castle at the time, some miles away. Literally less than a minute had gone by when the rescue helicopter roared overhead at low altitude and huge speed. It was absolutely unbelievable. The crew must have been sitting in the aircraft -- maybe just coincidentally.

As it turns out, it was a false alarm -- some training going on where they forgot to turn off the radio

[Neptune's Gear]

AIS SART. Shows the MOB on your AIS, and, if your vessel is equipped with and AIS that has the function, an alarm will sound immediately on reception of a SART signal. If your AIS does not have that function, it can be added. See Here. We will have the SART beacons listed later today as well...
Cheers
Matt

[Neptune's Gear]

Ok, SART Beacon now up Here Comments anyone??