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By Greg Bartlett

If you have a pleasure boat, and venture off shore you have probably followed all of the safety precautions. You’ve told friends or family members where you are going to be and when you should be expected back in port. You’ve spent a lot of money on your boat and all of the accoutrements that go with it. If you are a fisherman, you’ve in all probability got a princely sum invested in rods, reels and tackle. The question is, do you have an EPRIB? If you don’t, think of it this way. Why don’t you have an electronic life preserver for your boat?

EPIRB stands for Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon. The US Coast Guard mandates these devices as standard equipment for all commercial vessels. EPRIB’s have been around for a long time and utilize satellites to receive an emergency beacon. The original EPIRB units operated on a 121.5 MHz signal. As of Feb 1 2009 these units became obsolete, as the 121.5 MHz signal was no longer monitored by satellite. The current state of the art EPIRB units operate on 406MHz and provide coded signals to the satellite monitoring systems.

When you purchase and register your 406MHz EPIRB you include your name, address, phone number type of vessel you own and an emergency contact on the shore. There are two different types of EPIRB units. Category 1 units self deploy when a vessel sinks. These units detach from their bracket at a depth of 6′ – 10′. They then float to the surface and transmit a distress signal. Category 2 units are manually deployed and are less expensive than Category 1 units since no automatic deployment technology is utilized.

Emergency SAR response to 406MHz beacons is swift. Typically the time from beacon activation to SAR response is under 15 minutes. The inclusion of GPS tracking data in the beacon activation allows for an accuracy of 125 meters. As anyone who has been offshore, out of sight of land knows, the ocean is a big place and small objects such as pleasure craft cannot be seen well. The 125 meter accuracy pinpoints the location of the deployed beacon cutting down on the amount of time that the SAR crews have to search for a missing vessel.

If you are a boater who goes off shore and don’t have an EPIRB the question has to be asked, “Why don’t you?” If you believe that an accident will never happen to you then why are emergency floatation devices mandatory? The life vest will keep you afloat but the EPIRB is an electronic life preserver that will tell SAR crews where you are and that you are in trouble. They can then come get you, and your life vest, out of the water.