Article by Pat Schrawder
WHAT IS YOUR LIFE WORTH?
I spend a lot of time in these articles talking about safety at sea and with good reason. Over the years, we have heard more stories than you can imagine about what mishap took place. It just makes good sense to plan for the unexpected and to know what you are prepared to do when it does. That’s where your marine electronic equipment can make the difference in a bad day at sea that ends well or not.
There are items of electronics, if you have them, that you use almost every trip such as your radar, GPS/Plotter, VHF radio and autopilot. But there are others that you hope to never have to use and, yet, may be the very thing that saves your life on that bad day at sea. What if your boat catches on fire or starts to sink? What if you lose your engine power and you are drifting further offshore? That’s just two possible scenarios.
In the case of fire and/or sinking, a life raft will provide you with somewhere to go. In either case, it is critical that you have some way of getting rescued. Hopefully, your communications equipment will enable you to call for help, but what if the fire or the engine failure with loss of power renders your communication equipment useless? The answer is to have some form of portable rescue communication device such as an EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) or PLB (Personal Locator Beacon). Both devices work on the same general principle. When activated, they send a signal to a satellite which, in turn, relays to the Coast Guard ground stations in your area to start the process of a search and rescue mission. This all happens very quickly and can mean the difference between life and death.
EPIRB’s have come down in price considerably in recent years and PLB’s are quite reasonably priced. What is fairly new is the introduction of a service by ACR, one of the most popular manufacturers of EPIRB’s and PLB’s. This service is named 406link, a satellite testing system used to receive and verify self-test notifications from your emergency position device. Under normal practice, the purchaser of an EPIRB/PLB will occasionally “test” their device according to the device’s instructions. It is generally a switch or toggle that you press quickly which lights a strobe momentarily to tell you the unit is functioning. However, it is only testing the internal circuitry of the unit and the “test only” signal it sends. When it is received by a satellite and sent to the ground station, it is ignored as just a test. Beyond that, you just have to trust that, when you need it in a real emergency, it will operate properly.
What the 406link service does is allow you to actually send a signal just like your emergency one. The only difference is that it is specially encoded as a self-test registered beacon signal that will go to special 406link ground stations and is decoded in the same way that a real emergency message is done. In seconds, these stations process the information and send you an email and/or a SMS text message confirming your device serial number, emergency contact information, etc. There is a cost involved with this but it is minimal.
The basic plan of $39.95/year (11 cents a day) provides you with a thorough system test including an email/SMS text to one contact that you provide when you register and reminds you when it’s time for a battery replacement. For an additional $20, you can get the “Plus” plan that offers all of the above plus: five contacts for receiving confirmation messages, customizing of the message, trip planning and GPS location confirmation for certain models. ACR offers a free trial and the use of the service for two days free of charge.
The purchase of this service is separate from the purchase of the EPIRB/PLB. It is accomplished easily by going online after you purchase your ACR device and entering the required information about your contact email address and/or cell phone number along with a credit card for payment of your subscription.
If you don’t have an EPIRB or PLB yet, they are something that you really should consider. Starting at only $315, they are affordable. If you already have a later model ACR unit, all you have to do is go online at www.406link.com and register it. What is your life worth?
Pat and her husband, Larry are owners of L&L Marine Electronics on Golf Course Road in West Ocean City, MD.