Proper Preparation Brings Rapid Rescue - Strict Adherence to Rules Brings Rapid Relief

David Smith, Nathalie Criou, James Clappier and I were sailing north from Kaneohe on our way back to San Francisco after Pacific Cup in the Barran family ILC40, Mureadritta’s XL. At 415 miles north in two and a half days we were enjoying a pretty nice sail so far. The night of 24 July had looked threatening before sunset, so we double reefed the main and left the #3 up and thus the squalls that night presented no problems. Sunrise on the 25th July was splendid, with few clouds, mostly clear blue sky and an almost warm 15 knot breeze over 3-5 foot waves. We were close reaching on an excellent course. It does not get much better. Suddenly, BAM, with a huge crash, we went from the best of times to the worst of times.

David had called down ten minutes or so earlier to say that there were whales ahead, so Nathalie joined the on-watch with her camera. David sailed higher to clear the whales and we passed, leaving them some 3-4 boat lengths to port, took a couple of pictures and were readjusting course and sail trim to our original setting when the hit occurred.

Unseen till impact, the whale showed flukes to James as he re-trimmed the jib on the port primary. Yes, folks, we were on starboard tack with full rights and we had just been T-boned fore of the port side chain plates. If we had been a whale, and with our near black underside (Balto-plate) white fin, bulb and rudder and grey topsides I really think the whale, short sighted as they are, thought we were, then the hit was right in the chops, behind the jaw, which is their usual target when they fight. Our photos were examined by experts and our aggressors were identified as Sperm whales.

So Nathalie, David and James bailed and pumped the bilges for the next thirty minutes, as I first got on the SSB radio and put out a Mayday call in 2182mhz, the international emergency frequency. Nothing heard. Than on 8A, the Pacific Cup frequency that returning boats behind us would be monitoring. Still, nothing heard. OK, next the ACR 406 Rapid Fix EPIRB. That seemed to work as planned. Next the Iridium Sat phone. I started the engine and plugged that in to top up the battery. I then called Walt Niemczura, the Pacific Cup and TransPac communications guru, but got a co-worker at his office and his voice mail at home. Just hoped it would work out and that someone would call the Coast Guard with our position. (They did.)

Then I called my son, Antony, who was just boarding a plane in Hilo and was at the “excuse me, Sir, but you absolutely have to turn your phone off now” moment. So he went forward to the cockpit and persuaded that Captain of the urgency of the call and the Captain took our position information, which Antony had written on his calf as he had no paper handy, and radioed it in to the USCG through the control tower.

About this time, the water was up to our knees in the cabin and the bow was two feet under so I decided that the battle was lost and that we needed to deploy the life raft. We started loading all we needed into the cockpit in order of importance: water (15 gals in one and two gallon containers,) food (16 MREs), warm clothing (foulies) with life vests, communications devices (EPIRB, SatPhone, VHF, flares) navigation aids (GPS handheld and laptop,) first aid kit and personal ID (wallets, passports etc.)

With the bow now over three feet under and waist high in the cabin, I pulled the cord on the raft and we started loading our gear in. Funny how little room there is in an 8-man raft after you put adequate survival gear in for four people. So we were uncomfortable, but had what we needed, or so we thought.

Meanwhile, my wife was back at work in LA and she got the dreaded, “Ma’me, is your husband at sea, as his EPIRB has been activated?” call from the USCG control center in Point Reyes. She also got the “You know we get a lot of false alarms and it may really be nothing” line, which was kind of them to try, but it did not work.

Anyway, the net result was a third independent verification of the emergency and this was enough to launch the C130 from Barbers Point in under two hours from the EPIRB activation. USCG had a pretty good location for the 406 ACR EPIRB as well as two phoned in positions. Then flying at 17,000 ft they picked up the 121.5 signal, which is also transmitted by the 406, from 20 miles out from our position and they flew straight to us.

Once overhead the US Coast Guard executed a text book rescue. We were unable to contact them on Channel 16 on our hand held VHF, so they dropped a canister containing a fresh one, and soon told us that the AMVERS system showed a container ship 90 miles away and two fishing vessels 40-50 miles away. This meant pick-up by the life boat from the Maersk Darwin before dark as opposed to the two to three days I had anticipated. We then transferred from the Darwin to the long line trawler, Kami M for passage back to Honolulu, where we arrived almost exactly three days after the sperm whale hit us. Fantastic.

Here are some thoughts on what went right and what could make things even better:

1. Written race regulations are in reality guidelines that any intelligent sailor should follow. Whether for racing or cruising, these guidelines are well thought out and tested procedures.
2. It is not just a question of helping yourself; it is a question of helping those who bring rescue services to perform their duties with reduced response times and at reduced risk to themselves. Any sailor owes this to those who would help, whether coastal or offshore.
3. Racers are generally better prepared, as race organizers control the level of preparedness through inspections as a prerequisite to starting.
4. Cruisers are more exposed as they do not usually sail in groups that result in more boats being near a vessel in need of assistance, so cruisers need to be even better prepared than racers.

 Recommendations

1. Sat Phones
   1. Incorporate Iridium or other Sat Phone technology into safety programs
   2. Ensure better distribution of emergency phone numbers. Traditional emergency numbers as 911, 999 or other local or national numbers do not work on Sat Phones.
   3. Pre-program emergency and other essential contact numbers into Sat Phones.
   4. Make sure that you know your own number and that others have it in advance as well.
   5. Establish standard listening times for turn-on of Sat Phones that should otherwise be turned off to conserve battery power.
2. EPIRBs and PEPIRBs
   1. Establish standard procedures for 406 EPIRBs, including:
      i. Regular updating of database information
      ii Transferring vessel's EPIRB into life raft
2. Increase use of PEPIRBs and direction finders to increase self sufficiency in MOB situations
3. VHF handheld
   1. Get one with replaceable AA or similar batteries rather than a rechargeable one. The latter do not hold as well or last as long.
4. Strobe lights
   1. These should be standard on life rafts (new Night Vision technology on rescue helicopters and aircraft make this the easiest way to find life raft, day or night)
5. Handheld GPS
   1. Nothing beats the combination of this and a Sat Phone in a life raft.
6. Water and Food
   1. As a vessel sinks, there is no time to be filling water containers. One gallon containers must be set aside commensurate with the number of crew on board and sufficient for extended use.
   2. MREs are a perfect food source. (They are individually sealed, so keep dry, and comprehensive.)
7. Life raft sizes
   1. This issue should be revisited. If one loads sufficient water, food, warm clothing, flares, communications devises etc. into say an eight man raft, there is not enough space for the eight men.
8. Bathroom facilities
   1. None on a life raft, but a hospital type bedpan would certainly help, especially with women on board. Should be part of grab bag equipment (or maybe an inflatable one packed in life raft.)

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL-- JANUARY 23, 2006 ­ Two trans-Atlantic rowboat racers, who capsized and clung to their 24-foot craft for over half a day in storm-tossed seas, were rescued after they activated their ACR Electronics SATELLITE 406™ EPIRB that they secured through the BoatU.S. Foundation EPIRB Rental Program.

The Coast Guard (CG) responded to a 406 MHz EPIRB signal received on January 15 from the capsized rowboat, American Fire, located 1,300 miles east of Puerto Rico. After identifying the distressed vessel, a full-scale search and rescue operation was launched involving a CG C-130 airplane and 10 hours of flight time. Once the Coast Guard determined the boaters' location, they requested the assistance of the closest vessel, a tall ship 120 miles away.

The two young women, Emily Kohl and Sarah Kessans, one of 26 teams in the 2005 Atlantic Rowing Race from the Canary Island to Antigua, had already spent 47 days at sea. At 4:30 a.m. on Sunday, a large rogue wave slammed into them so violently that it snapped off their life raft and overturned their boat. Once they saw that it would not self-right, they deployed their EPIRB and scrambled on top of the hull, which was to become their perch for 16 cold, miserable hours.

When the weak survivors detected the CG rescue plane in the distance, they turned on their life jacket strobe lights and held their EPIRB high in an attempt to make themselves visible. After a few passes, the plane dropped an orange flare, which lit the way for the Stavros S. Niarchos of the Tall Ships Youth Trust to locate them and bring them onboard. The tall ship continued on its route south and will deliver the women to Barbados on January 30.

The sailors credited the beacon for saving their lives. "The EPIRB was the primary reason we were saved. If we had not managed to hold onto that priceless piece of equipment, we would not have had any chance of being saved," Kessans said. "When we deployed it 16 hours prior to our rescue, we knew that it was our only hope, having our other communications equipment either fail due to water (immersion) or low battery power."

Teammate Kohl also extolled the beacon's performance. "The ACR 406 EPIRB, lent to us by the BoatU.S.Foundation, did its job perfectly. The USCG was able to pick up the signal and set the search and rescue mission into action. We plan on finishing what we started two years from now in the next race, and our first piece of equipment will be the ACR EPIRB... though we hope that we will not have the need to use it in the future," Kohl said.

The Coast Guard pilot, Major Ben Maitre, who flew the C-130 based at USCG Air Station Clearwater, said it was a challenging rescue that involved almost 3,000 miles of flight. "Having the beacon and activating it was the single most important thing they did to aid themselves. They were in the middle of nowhere, and because of the distance from land, we had a limited amount of time available to be on scene searching. Within 45 minutes we located them," Major Maitre said. "This was a one shot deal. If we hadn¹t found them, it would have been another 10 hours before another airplane could arrive to search for them. The EPIRB gave them a much better chance of rescue."

David Carter, manager of the BoatU.S. EPIRB Rental Program, credits the EPIRB partnership with ACR Electronics, Inc. for saving lives. "When the BoatU.S. Foundation started the nation's first-ever Rental EPIRB program in 1995, under a pilot program sponsored by USCG, we knew we had to have a proven, high-quality rescue beacon," Carter said. "ACR recognized our program¹s life-saving potential and partnered with us to provide the original units at cost. To date, we have saved nearly three dozen lives and continue to rely exclusively on ACR EPIRBs."

A PLB/P-EPIRB/P-ELT is a satellite-signaling device of last resort, for use when all other means of self-rescue have been exhausted and where the situation is deemed to be grave and imminent, and the loss of life, limb, eyesight or valuable property will occur without assistance. All beacons must be registered following purchase, simply go online to www.beaconregistration.noaa.gov.

ACR Electronics, Inc. (www.acrelectronics.com), a Cobham plc Company, designs and manufactures a complete line of safety and survival products including EPIRBs, P-ELTs/P-EPIRBS/PLBs, Bridge-based Information Systems, SARTS and safety accessories. The quality systems of this facility have been registered by UL to the ISO 9001:2000 Series Standards. Recognized as the world leader in safety and survival technologies, ACR has provided safety equipment to the aviation and marine industries as well as to the military since 1956.

For more information on the race, go to www.woodvale-events.com. To follow the rowers' journey and to view video of the rescue, go to www.weblogpage.com/americanfire12. For images of the ACR EPIRB, contact John Bell at 954-970-3394 or e-mail at preseitz@bellsouth.net.

Since the EPIRB ­ a GlobalFix Category II model manufactured by ACR Electronics ­ was registered, the rescue centers knew that the vessel was a 43-foot sailboat named Emilen II, owned by Claude Allard of Montreal, Quebec. Conditions that day were not good for being adrift at sea. A cold front that had closed down the Atlanta airport the day before was affecting the region. It was cloudy and rainy with temperatures of 35 ­ 40 degrees. Winds were 30 knots and seas were 15-20 feet.

They make our job rescuing people easier," he said. "These people did everything right. They had a registered EPIRB with at least three strobe lights, and they took this equipment with them as they got into their little boat. All in all it was a good outcome."

 Lonnie Dupre, Thule 2000 Expedition

"To the Dedicated People who make the ACR Strobe Light..."

I am a Combat Search and Rescue Helicopter Flight Engineer serving with the 102nd Air Rescue Squadron of the New York Air National Guard. I was sent out on a rescue mission during the storm that ravaged the Northeast coast, dubbed "The Perfect Storm" by Sebastian Junger. We were forced to ditch and were in the water, at night, for approximately six hours. Although our survival vests host quite an array of rescue devices... the only ones that worked under these conditions were our ACR strobe lights. I owe my life to the brave and unselfish crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Tamaroa, and to the priceless little strobe light that guided their journey."

Sincerely,

Ssgt James R. Mioli
HH-60G Flight Engineer

Robert Bragan (front left) and 19 year old son Timothy (front right), have quite a sea story to tell. The two were adrift off the coast of North Carolina earlier this month after their 40 foot sailboat lost its keel. They were on a trip to Bermuda. Their position in the water was relayed by their Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB). The device was rented before the trip from Outfitters-USA Services of Annapolis, MD. The EPIRB signaled the boater's position to an orbiting satellite, where it was then relayed to a rescue coordinator with the US Coast Guard. The Bragans are from Bethesda, MD.