Article by Capt. Steve Katz
Safety at Sea
Two news stories this week provide the real-life example of boating safety aided by technology.
The first story made national headlines about a rescue at sea during a Clearwater Florida ladies fishing tournament held on Saturday June 25, 2022. A 39’ center console with two crew and five lady anglers was on a 100-mile trip back to the dock from a day of fishing. They were running through a storm when lightning directly hit their boat. Owner, Mr. Glenn Rumer indicated "The outrigger that actually got struck exploded into splinters and was on fire when it landed.” "The motors, the electrical, everything went out. We were completely dead in the water."
What made this even more newsworthy is that Joshua Guy, the local captain on-board for the tournament was using his smartphone filming the trip home and captured the lightning strike in a video and inadvertently captured himself being shocked by the lighting. Glenn Rumer said, "The electricity from the lightning actually went through him and caused him to black out and go to the floor," Rumer told the station, adding that their friend "came to immediately" after falling over.”
The crew quickly realized that the engines and all the electronics were knocked out by the lightning strike, leaving them stranded and adrift 100 miles out in the Gulf. Boat owner, Glenn Rumer had a EPIRB onboard and quickly activated the rescue beacon. After a two-hour flight, a Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater MH-60 helicopter found their boat and hoisted all seven people aboard the helicopter and brought them to safety.
As a standard operating procedure, the USCG contacted the registered owner of the EPIRB by telephone and in this case, Coast Guard District Seven command was able to contact the EPIRB owner's wife who said her husband and others where part of a fishing tournament. This information put the USCG into immediate action. The USCG also indicated that this event where lighting hits a moving boat is exceedingly rare.
An unregistered or improperly registered EPIRB can delay a response by rescue authorities. In the USA, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) handles EPIRB registration, they have a registration website, www.beaconregistration.noaa.gov or you can call them at 301-817-4515. EPIRB registration data must be renewed every two years and updates can be made at any time.
If you sell your boat, you should keep your EPIRB with you or unregister your EPIRB if you leave it for the buyer. Recently a Captain told me that the boat owner was called about his EPIRB activation, though the boat and EPIRB were both safe. It turns out the activation was from a EPIRB that stayed on a sold boat through two additional owners, none of the new owners bothered to register the EPIRB with their personal information.
This anecdote reminds us on how important it is to have a good working EPIRB and that it is properly registered.
A second story in our own backyard two weeks ago is the rescue of a sinking boat fifteen miles east of Ocean City. The boat “Hot Pursuit” with four people aboard began taking on water and the crew was not sure if they could make the trip back to Ocean City without sinking.
In this case, the crew used the marine VHF radio’s DSC distress feature to automatically contact the USCG. A Coast Guard Station Ocean City 47-foot Motor Lifeboat crew was launched to assist. When the crew arrived on scene, they embarked two of the four passengers and stabilized the vessel with dewatering pumps.
The DSC feature is built into all modern marine VHF radios, Digital Selective Calling or DSC, is the ability of the marine VHF to transmit digital information to another VHF radio, it can be used to hail other boaters but, in this case, it can be used to automate an emergency call to the USCG.
This distress call is initiated by pressing the button under the red protective cover on the VHF. The idea is that the red button is pre-programmed with information about your boat so that, in the event of a life-threatening situation, you can send an effective automatic mayday distress call while you are busy with other tasks. For the emergency call to work properly your VHF radio needs two things:
First the VHF radio needs to know your vessels position, latitude and longitude, this is accomplished by interconnecting the VHF to an onboard GPS system or some of the newest VHF radios come with a built-in GPS receiver, allowing standalone operation.
Second, the VHF radio needs to be programed by the radio owner with the vessels Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI) number, this is a unique 9-digit number issued to the vessel, available from the FCC or other issuing groups like BoatUS, United States Power Squadrons and others. NOTE: if you operate your vessel in foreign waters, including Canada, Bahamas, Mexico etc. or regulations require your vessel to have an MMSI number, you will need to obtain the MMSI from the FCC.
These two stories are an example of situations that can happen to any boater, any distance from port. The immediate aid and rescues were a result of boaters being prepared with the correct, properly registered safety equipment and the knowledge of how and when to operate the distress equipment. §
