EPIRBS and PLBs

There are parts of Scotland’s west coast where hand-held VHFs are out of range, there’s no mobile phone signal and it’s unlikely anyone would see a flare. Sometimes all three.

Should a safety conscious sea-kayaker consider carrying an Emergency Position Indicator Radio Beacon (EPIRB) or a the new, smaller Personal Locator Beacon (PLB)? I asked a question like this two years ago after listening to a talk by a Stornoway Coastguard at the Skye Symposium.

It prompted a lively thread on the Forum which I’ve recently re-visited after discovering the McMurdo Fast Find for £249.

However as contributors to the forum pointed out, the accuracy and speed of response seemed much better in the McMurdo FastFind Plus for £399.

I e-mailed the McMurdo to check if there really was such a difference. There is.

The FastFind (non-GPS) version has a 45 minute speed-of-alert and 5 km accuracy, which puts your location somewhere inside a 20 square kilometer box.

The FastFind Plus (GPS version) has a 3 minute speed-of-alert and 50 meter accuracy. For a sea-kayaker in trouble, probably in the water, there’s no real contest. It would have to be the GPS version.

I’ll start saving.

This is the information sent by McMurdo:

An Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) or Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) is used to alert search and rescue services in the event of an emergency. They do this by transmitting a coded message on the 406 MHz distress frequency. This message is relayed via satellite and earth station to the nearest rescue co-ordination centre.

406 MHz EPIRBs and PLBs work with the Cospas-Sarsat polar orbiting satellite system which provides true global coverage. The system has an alert delay of typically 45 minutes dependant on when the satellites come into view on the horizon.

The satellite can determine the position of your Smartfind E5 EPIRB or Fastfind PLB to within 5km (3 miles). The coded message identifies the exact vessel to which the E5 is registered or the person the Fastfind PLB is registered to. This information allows the rescue services to eliminate false alerts and launch an appropriate rescue.

The GPS enabled Smartfind Plus G5 406 MHz EPIRB and Fastfind Plus PLB have built-in transmitters that will alert the rescue services in typically 3 minutes, giving typical positional accuracy of about 50 metres, and positional updates every 20 minutes.

Both the Smartfind EPIRBs and Fastfind PLBs also have a secondary distress transmitter. This transmits on 121.5 MHz and is used for "homing" purposes. When the rescue services get close, this allows them to direction find on the signal. To cater for searches at night, the Smartfind EPIRBs have a high brightness LED flashing light that aids final visual location.