Location Tracking for Club Sailor Weekend Sailor?

[webmanoffesto]

What would be a good location tracking system for a club sailor, weekend sailor, who is constantly trying to push their limits. I guess within the forseeable future my sailing outer limit (max) would be something like a 7 day sail along the New England coast or in the BVI.

I guess my concern is how to request help, which can be divided into notifying the coast guard and notifying club (or friends / family).

Maybe I should upgrade my radio to one with DSC and GPS. At least then I wouldn't have to also pay a monthly subscription, like with the satellite communicators. That may be my best option now. That would solve the "notify coastguard" question.

My club lets us sail quite far out, and I was surprised to learn that the club is not interested in putting GPS trackers in their boats, or in letting me share my Navionics Live Track with them. So what safeguards can I have, in the event that there is an emergency when I am sailing at the outer edges of the club limit.

I'm also interested in whether OpenCPN can provide a Share Live Track ability. Although that would probably require more than just running the app on my phone, as I do now.

I'm not looking to spend a lot more money, and I wish I could just share my Navionics Live Location (from my phone, also a weak point). Sharing the path I sailed to get there seems like it could be useful too.

Notifying Club: In the "wake" of a recent experience, what I'm thinking about is, if it's an hour past the club's closing time and I haven't returned, or if conditions were fine when I left, but then the wind picked up so much that the club closed (and they can't reach me by cell phone or radio). Do they have a way to look at a chart and see either that my sailing seems to be progressing just fine despite the changed conditions, or to look at it and say "hey, it looks like that boat ran aground". Or "why is that boat well beyond the 'outer limit' and heading out to sea?" (Not my main issue, but it does seem strange to me that they just leave a couple of staff members there looking out to sea hoping that the boat returns.)

I see wide variety of satellite communicators (at a wide range of prices) and which charge a variety of monthly subscription fees.

I sail out of a club in Boston. This is now my third year sailing with them. Recently three of us sailed a Catalina 27 with a tiller. We sailed to Graves Light, at the edge of the harbor. That's about 8 nautical miles, as the crow flies. If something had gone wrong, the club would be unlikely to send help (in their small open boat with an outboard motor). That leaves only the coast guard. I imagine that I could raise the coast guard on 16 and tell them I'm off island X. But my radio doesn't give me GPS coordinates.

I don't want to exaggerate the risks, but it's humbling to think what could have happened if the rudder fell off or if we lost the jib just off a small, rocky hazard.

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"I was filling out a form and it said 'in case of emergency notify' and I wrote in 'doctor'. What the hell is my mother going to do?" - Steven Wright

[dougweibel]

Unless you have someone who is going to actively watch your track it seems that a cell phone and a good handheld VHF with DSC and GPS should have you covered. Minor problem - phone a friend. Major problem or out of cell range call TowBoat/SeaTow or the coast guard on the VHF.

I've got a nice Icom handheld I like. It has DSC, GPS and AIS. AIS is quite handy while coastal sailing.

[requiem]

A decent VHF is best. If the boat lacks an EPIRB you might want to carry a PLB, but a DSC-enabled handheld is probably the tidiest option along the coast. If you have a cell phone or other GPS-enabled device you can simply read off the coordinates into the radio.

DSC on a handheld is perhaps most useful if you're actually in the water: water in the microphone (even on a water-resistant radio) can garble your voice.

Bear in mind that if something goes wrong near "a small, rocky hazard" there's a good chance rescue can't arrive in time. There's time for the call to be assessed, people alerted, pre-flight checks done, etc. Always allow room to address whatever might crop up.