SPOT report

I've been experimenting with my new SPOT Beacon

http://www.findmespot.com/

and am so far favorably impressed. I set the email address to text to my
cell phone so I can judge response time. The longest has been under 30
minutes and messages usually come through within 10 - 15. I've had it
broadcasting from below on a shelf near the companionway where I'd like to
keep it and where it would be easy to grab on the way out of a sinking or
burning boat. This puts it on its side, a less than optimal position, but
the messages still get through consistently, even in the murky wet weather
of the past couple of days.

The manual says it will attempt to send out a tracking report every 10
minutes. I've tracked a couple of short sails and the report intervals
that appear on the tracking web page for shore support or friends appears to
be more on the order of every half hour. This is plenty good enough. I'm
not sure yet whether it just abandons position report attempts when a
satellite isn't available or if heeling to one side with my less than
optimal positioning is blocking some reports. I'll let you know when I
figure it out.

Probably because it doesn't use WAAS, it seems to get a position faster than
my Garmin GPS when turned on. If rescue gets within 200 feet of you, you
are probably saved so I don't think the lower accuracy is a concern.

I've been engaged in an email exchange with a professional captain friend
and his friend who sells navigation equipment and refuses to sell the SPOT.
I agree with him that it is not a substitute for a real, water activated,
EPIRB for serious deepwater sailing but it is a good backup in its coverage
area which is everywhere I plan to go and as far as 95% of sailors ever
venture. An EPIRB is sort of like an insurance policy. It gives you
absolutely no value except peace of mind unless you have an accident. I
bought the SPOT primarily for the tracking feature as a birthday present for
Barbara. Last fall, when I sailed exhausted into a cove singlehanded after
near gale conditions at the end of October, I was out of cell phone range
and couldn't raise anyone on the radio because no one was out there. She
called the Coast Guard. They didn't do a search, thank goodness, but she
spent a sleepless night. With the SPOT, she could have been following my
progress and I could have sent her an OK message. For a simple boat like
mine that doesn't (and never will) have SSB, Internet, etc. this is a great
feature in a handheld device. There are several people who would enjoy
following my cruises so, even though the SPOT is a bit more expensive over a
5 year period than something like an ACR, it can return value every single
day.

Another great feature is being able to send a help message just to your
picked group of pre-briefed contacts on shore instead of mobilizing a major
USCG SAR effort. If you are safe but immobilized by mechanical or medical
problem, you can get private help. I'm going to prebrief my shore contacts
that continuous "Help" messages mean that it is a medical problem and
repeated "Help", "Cancel Help", "OK", "Help".. messages mean that it is a
mechanical problem or grounding. This will tell them whether to send Sea
Tow or an EMS team if I can't raise anyone on the VHF or it has
malfunctioned, possibly by dismasting.

Pressing the 911 button summons the same help as an EPIRB but the message
first goes to the private GEOS center in Texas who contacts the USCG or
other appropriate authorities. The navigation equipment company that won't
sell the SPOT asked me, "Would you trust your life to a private company?"
Well, we do all the time and the performance record of government vs private
in most activities is pretty heavily in favor of the private. The "Morning
Dew" incident Larry referrs to in the Pan Pan thread shows that the USCG can
screw up as well as anyone.

I went through the GEOS site

http://www.geosalliance.com/sar

which is behind SPOT and am quite impressed. The USCG is primarily
experienced in directing their own assets while GEOS is constantly engaged
in coordinating the full spectrum of public, military, and private resources
in a wide variety of situations. One nice thing about the SPOT is that it
is equally useful on shore. You can take it hiking or flying with equally
effecient response. Try that with your marine registered EPIRB. If you
find youself upside down in a rental car out of cell phone range on a
sightseeing trip in a foreign port, the GEOS center should figure out how to
get help to you a lot quicker than in the unlikely event that you took your
boat EPIRB with you. What is the USCG going to do if they get a boat
registered EPIRB signal from 30 miles inland in Scotland?

I think this is well worth looking into. It's good primary distress beacon
for cruising areas where boats don't normally carry them. It's a good back
up for a standard EPIRB and a good ditch bag item. It's also a good peace
of mind communication device for friends and family on shore if you either
don't want to devoted space and electrical power to more sophisticated
communications equipment than VHF. I don't want any more communication than
the SPOT. The last thing I want to hear about while I'm cruising is Aunt
Martha's colostomy, the latest bad economic news, or anything else from the
world I'm trying to take a break from.

Skip will be running a SPOT on his trip up to New England. Hopefully, he
will post the page which will give us a better idea how it works offshore.

--
Roger Long



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