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#615997 - 05/04/06 11:04 PM Re: **** Offshore Safety Tips ****
Captbillb Offline

Member

Registered: 08/28/02
Posts: 2032
Loc: Grassy Key, Islamorada, Deerfi...
Hi All,
Pains Wessex has announced a recall of some of its products. Be aware if you have these in your offshore or near coastal raft flare kits:

PRESS STATEMENT
PAINS WESSEX ANNOUNCES TOTAL RECALL OF
PAINS WESSEX WHITE COLLISION WARNING (MK7)
HAND FLARE ITEM NO 52651
Following investigations carried out after an incident in which a member of the public
was injured, Pains Wessex has announced a total recall
of all its Pains Wessex White Collision Warning (MK7)
Hand Flares Item No 52651.
No Red (MK7) Hand Flares nor any other Pains Wessex products are being recalled.
The recall does not affect Pains Wessex Australia Aurora Hand Flares.
Pains Wessex has identified that there may be a risk that some of these white flares
will not fire as intended. All white flares are therefore being recalled as a safety
precaution. Additionally, this total recall will allow us to bring these products into our
continuing investigation.
The Pains Wessex White Collision Warning (MK 7) Hand Flare Item No 52651 is sold
on its own and is also contained as a part of the Collision Warn-Off Kit and the ORC
RORC Distress Kit.
Customers with in-date Pains Wessex White Collision Warning (MK7) Hand Flares
Item No 52651 are requested not to use the flare, and to return it immediately to the
place of purchase where the purchase price will be refunded. If unable to return the
flare to the place of purchase, customers may take the flare to their nearest chandler.
Customers with out-of-date Pains Wessex White Collision Warning (MK7) Hand
Flares Item No 52651 should contact Pains Wessex on +44(0) 2392 623965.
To assist its customers with this recall, Pains Wessex has set up a help line during
office hours on +44(0)2392 623962 or the company can be contacted via email at
recall@pwss.com.
For more press information please contact ADPR Ltd, Tel +44 (0) 1935 826451,
Mob +44 (0) 797 1019377 or email alice@adpr.co.uk
This press statement can be downloaded from www.adpr.co.uk and high res
images are available from this site. 4 May 2006
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Fishing Info
#615998 - 05/22/06 02:59 PM Re: **** Offshore Safety Tips ****
MermaidCT Offline

Member

Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 8761
Loc: SE CT Shoreline
Just wanted to share this - I picked up a book last week that seems to have good info concerning safety/survival at sea.

The Handbook of Survival at Sea by Chris Beeson


"The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever." Jacques Yves Cousteau



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#615999 - 06/09/06 06:47 PM Re: **** Offshore Safety Tips ****
gerg Offline

Member

Registered: 01/04/03
Posts: 8789
Fwiw, I added a third battery to my rig this week.
It didn't cost anything, and I already had a spare charging bank open, so it wasn't a big expense.

I put it into an above deck side cabinet that used to hold my oil tanks. It is rigged on the seperate charging bank, and I have a standard on/off switch between the battery and one of my primary bus-bars. The idea is that it will be in the off position by default, and switched into the main load only if it is needed.

I'm also going to rewire one of my VHF radios to be run by this battery as a house circuit (maybe I'll switch that connection also on an a/b switch). It's a group 27 AGM battery (as are the other 2), so it shouldn't ever get run down in normal use by a single VHF, but it will give me those last few moments to get a message off if my bilge fills with water off to the point that the other batteries short out.

Of course, it adds another 80 pounds of dead weight to the boat. But it is reassuring to have a backup battery if for nothing else than to start the engines after a long drift.

*********************************

Well behaved boats rarely make history.....
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#616000 - 07/17/06 11:59 PM Re: **** Offshore Safety Tips ****
JoeRums Offline
Member

Registered: 05/28/06
Posts: 30
hay: thanks for the the info my second year with my first boat 230 proline walk never thought there was so much too learn

joerums
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#616001 - 09/01/06 01:22 PM Re: **** Offshore Safety Tips ****
swwind Offline

Member

Registered: 06/10/03
Posts: 15005
Good Life Raft Video.

In early April, UK-Halsey where I used to work \:D was a sponsor of a hands-on Safety at Sea Seminar at the US Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, N.Y. It relates mostly to MOB procedures for sailors, however they shot video throughout the program and have been posting segments on the UK-Halsey website for several months.

This fourth installment shows Charles Daneko of Winslow Life Raft Company teaching sailors the proper way to deploy, right and climb into a life raft.

You will need to "register" at the website,

http://www.ukhalsey.com/home.asp

Click on the the "Learning Center"

Go to the "Saftey at Sea Videos" section

""Happy Talk" . . . . . Because it has worked so well thus far"

"It is not necessary to change; survival is not mandatory" - Edward Deming

"Unless we start to focus everything on this, our targets will soon be out of reach" - Greta Thunberg January 2020

"I spent most of my dough on booze, broads and boats and the rest I wasted" - Elmore Leonard.

Team Man Made Climate Change is Real.

"Such change demands on our part a serious and responsible recognition not only of the kind of world we may be leaving to our children, but also to the millions of people living under a system which has overlooked them" - Pope Francis September 2015
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#616002 - 09/13/06 04:08 PM Re: **** Offshore Safety Tips ****
swwind Offline

Member

Registered: 06/10/03
Posts: 15005
Good report on MOB techniques and equipment. Lots of good details and testing of various MOB products. Powerboats, Sailboats and equipment.

http://www.boatus.com/foundation/findings/COBfinalreport/COB%20FINAL%20REPORT.pdf

""Happy Talk" . . . . . Because it has worked so well thus far"

"It is not necessary to change; survival is not mandatory" - Edward Deming

"Unless we start to focus everything on this, our targets will soon be out of reach" - Greta Thunberg January 2020

"I spent most of my dough on booze, broads and boats and the rest I wasted" - Elmore Leonard.

Team Man Made Climate Change is Real.

"Such change demands on our part a serious and responsible recognition not only of the kind of world we may be leaving to our children, but also to the millions of people living under a system which has overlooked them" - Pope Francis September 2015
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#616003 - 01/03/07 08:07 PM Re: **** Offshore Safety Tips ****
James Dean Offline

Member

Registered: 05/10/04
Posts: 500
"*CG" on a Cell Phone is no more.

Beginning January 1, 2007 *CG can no longer be utilized to contact the Coast Guard on a cell phone. You will need the local number of the CG in the area where you are located at the time.

Here's a link to a CG Release earlier in 2006

https://www.piersystem.com/go/doc/786/136330/

JD
Maggie B
Ocean 44 SS
Noank, CT
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#616004 - 01/15/07 07:17 PM Re: **** Offshore Safety Tips ****
downtown Offline
Member

Registered: 03/09/06
Posts: 19
excellent and necessary thread. it's stuff we all have heard and know. but it means nothing if you don't take the steps to make sure you are boating as safely as possible. last year was my first in montauk and i pretty much stayed closed to shore. this year i want to venture out a bit more and want to pick up an epirb and life raft.

downtown fisherman
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#616005 - 05/19/07 03:12 PM Re: **** Offshore Safety Tips ****
gerg Offline

Member

Registered: 01/04/03
Posts: 8789
You guys do have Type 1 life jackets, right? :p

 Quote:
By RICHARD STEWART
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

ANGLETON — Two fishermen who spent two days and nights in the turbulent Gulf of Mexico after their boat overturned said they never doubted that they would be rescued.
"It wasn't something we even considered," Aaron Pilcher, a 29-year-old electrician, said Friday of the idea that the pair might not survive. "We always knew we would make it."

But friends and family of Pilcher and his fishing buddy Michael Prahm Jr., 27, said the two were very lucky to have made it. Pilcher spent more than 39 hours in the water, Prahm 42. They had drifted more than 20 miles.

Sunburned and weaving from fatigue, the two seemed otherwise fit when they were reunited with friends Friday morning. Prahm had exchanged his wet T-shirt for a blue U.S. Coast Guard shirt. Pilcher was wearing a small blanket wrapped around his shoulders. A friend lent him his shoes.

Pilcher said from his hospital bed in the emergency room of Angleton Danbury Hospital that he had no idea where he got the strength to climb up the barnacle-encrusted leg of an offshore oil platform about 3:30 a.m. Friday after swimming all night.

"All I knew was that there are two things on every platform — water and a telephone," he said. "And I wanted water, and I wanted to telephone my family."

He also wanted to help the U.S. Coast Guard find his longtime friend who was still in the water. The 87-foot-long Coast Guard patrol boat Amberjack picked up Prahm about two miles from the platform at 6 a.m. A Coast Guard helicopter flew both men to the Brazoria County Airport, where they were reunited with family and friends.

They then went to the hospital in Angleton, where they were administered intravenous fluids and treated for sunburn and cuts and scrapes. The men reported that they were bitten by small fish, but never saw any sharks during their ordeal. Pilcher was scraped by barnacles on his arms and legs while climbing up the rig.

Prahm said that while he was in the water he started to hallucinate. "I thought the helicopters were big Transformers," he said, recalling toys he had as a child that transformed from ordinary vehicles into robots.


Ordeal begins

Their ordeal began at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday when they left a Freeport boat launch for a fishing trip, something the two Friendswood men had done many times before.
They rode the 23-foot-long Mako boat owned by Prahm's family to a popular offshore fishing spot called the 22 1/2 Fathom Lump, about 36 miles offshore, and soon started catching fish.

About noon they noticed the boat was taking on water. Just as they turned on the two-way radio to send a mayday call, the boat capsized. "It just flipped over," Prahm said. "We only had time to grab our life preservers."

It was the life preservers that probably saved them, said Coast Guard spokesman Adam Eggers. "They were lucky, but more than that they were smart," Eggers said.

The life jackets the men had were the heavy-duty type used offshore and not the lighter-duty types often worn by recreational boaters or water skiers. "Those lighter life vests would not have stood up to that much time in the water," Eggers said.

The men also salvaged three small bottles of water. They shared two of them, but lost the other. They scrambled aboard a small area of the underside of the boat that was still sticking out of the water and waited for rescue. Waves kept washing over them.

At about 9 p.m. Wednesday, family members notified the Coast Guard that the pair were overdue.

Wednesday night brought squalls. "There was 10- and 12-foot seas," Pilcher said.

They knew searchers were looking for them because they often saw Coast Guard helicopters and airplanes in the area. But none came over them.

Pilcher said at one time he fired a flare to try to attract the attention of one of the helicopters, but it wasn't seen.

Thursday night they drifted to within a half-mile of an oil platform and about 9 p.m. they decided to leave the boat and try to swim to it.

"We thought we could make it," Prahm said, "but a strong rip current got hold of us and carried us away."

They drifted close to another rig and Prahm told Pilcher that he was too weak to swim to it. He urged his friend to swim for help.

Climbing about 15 feet up the big metal pipe that formed one leg of the platform took strength he didn't know he still had. "I just know I wanted water," he said.


Crew surprised

He walked through a door into the galley of the platform, surprising the crew. "They wanted to know how I got on their rig," he said.
He telephoned his wife, Crystal, who informed the Coast Guard.

Knowing Pilcher was safe, the searchers concentrated all their resources in finding Prahm. He was picked up at 6 a.m. Friday

Sitting next to her husband in the emergency room, Crystal Pilcher said it may be a long time before she lets her husband go fishing offshore again. "I think we'll just stay on the lake where we can see the shore," she said.

Pilcher's grandfather, Wallace Pilcher, was a little more colorful. "I hope they outlaw eating fish," he said.

Prahm's father, Michael Prahm Sr., said he isn't worried about the boat, which is still missing. "We'll just offer it up to the sea," he said. "At least I got my firstborn back."

The fishermen said all they want to do now is rest and get over their sunburn. Prahm, who graduated from the University of Houston Saturday with a degree in chemical engineering, is also looking for a job.

Pilcher's father, Vic Pilcher, was philosophical about the whole ordeal. "It isn't often that the sea gives somebody back," he said.

Eggers said the many Coast Guard personnel involved were elated that the fishermen were recovered. "We love happy endings," he said.
Of course up here hypothermia will get you long before your vest fails, but it's still a good idea to have them on board.

*********************************

Well behaved boats rarely make history.....
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#616006 - 05/19/07 08:00 PM Re: **** Offshore Safety Tips ****
swwind Offline

Member

Registered: 06/10/03
Posts: 15005
36 miles offshore - gasoline bill = $275

Global Fix Cat II Class 1 EPIRB = $900

You could really question why they would not have a EPIRB or a raft for that matter.

Those guys are so lucky to be alive - 39 hours in the water

I'll bet the survival rate over 24 hours is less than 1%.

""Happy Talk" . . . . . Because it has worked so well thus far"

"It is not necessary to change; survival is not mandatory" - Edward Deming

"Unless we start to focus everything on this, our targets will soon be out of reach" - Greta Thunberg January 2020

"I spent most of my dough on booze, broads and boats and the rest I wasted" - Elmore Leonard.

Team Man Made Climate Change is Real.

"Such change demands on our part a serious and responsible recognition not only of the kind of world we may be leaving to our children, but also to the millions of people living under a system which has overlooked them" - Pope Francis September 2015
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