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Yes, I think strobes are the way to go, at least for night. I was involved in an at-sea rescue of the crew of a fishing boat that went down in the Bering Sea a few years ago and the strobes they had attached to their survival suits were visible at a couple miles away. I was sold. Longline fishermen here in Alaska sometimes use stobes to mark their gear also. I don't know if the strobes that come with survival suits are appropriate for diving but it might be worth looking into. Survival suits also have large reflective stripes on the shoulders which really light up at a distance but that doesn't do much good I expect, unless someone's already shining a light at you. My guess is that sound may not carry very far if its rough out, the wind is blowing, and you're trying to attract a powerboat with its engines running. For that reason I'm skeptical of those horn gizmos that attach to the bc hose. I've been at sea on days when it was hard getting someones attention on the other side of the deck by yelling over the roar of the wind, waves and engines. Of course I wouldn't dive in those conditions either. Is anyone aware of any studies that have compared the efficacy of various signal devices? One would think that the U.S. Coast Guard or Navy (or the Brits) must have studied this topic to death over the years. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kent Lind klind@rd*.no*.go* (or) National Marine Fisheries Service klind@fa*.af*.no*.go* PO Box 21668 907/586-7228 (phone) Juneau, Alaska, 99802 907/586-7465 (fax) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- shartley@sc*.ed*.au* (Simon Hartley) Wrote: | | Doug Chapman writes: | >searching for them. Some were wearing single-cell flashlight type | >marker lights; some were wearing cylume stick lights; and others were | >wearing strobe light markers.... | | ..... | >ONLY EFFECTIVE distress marker (you guessed it) was a strobe light. The | >flashlight and cylume markers were no good. We would retrieve the | | On a trip to the Coral Sea a few years ago a number of the divers on our | trip were using strobes for night diving and I remember being quite | impressed by how effective they were. Unfortunately I didn't find out who | manufactured them. I would appreciate any info you could send me on who | manufactures the strobes you refered to? Thanks!! | | >I remember a situation in Hawaii when the Coast Guard I believe was | >conducting research using piegons to locate people adrift in life | >jackets. Apparently the eye of the piegon is very sensitive to yellow | >and orange?? The piegon was strapped under the body of the helicopter | >in a housing and had keys to peck at (one left, one center, one right) | >that were connected to lights in the cockpit. I think I remember this | >story correctly but it's been a while. If the piegon spotted the | >lifejacket color to the left, it would peck at the left key and the | >pilot would change course accordingly. 'Similarly for the other | >headings. During the tests the helicopter developed problems and had to | >land in the water (apparently it was a floater). No one had thought | >about this scenario and the $10,000 piegon drowned. So much for rescue | >at sea research. This is the etc. part.
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