Why I flew 1400 miles to pick up my favourite PLB!

My personal locator beacon goes everywhere with me. When plans changed, I had to fly 1400 miles back home to get it.

The FastFind return link Personal Locator Beacon

It might seem a bit excessive to fly so far for a personal locator beacon. And you’d be right, except, this was just a rather long winded version of arriving at work and remembering you left your iron on at home. Home is where the beacon is usually kept. And that’s a little Island in the Atlantic. The office is Southampton. Drat and double drat.

Surely I have a spare at the office right? Yes I have a box full of sample test beacons. But they’re all as useful as mudflaps on a tortoise. I’ll explain…

As Britains leading marine group tech editor I get my hands on all sorts of safety gear, beacons, lifejackets, wearable tech, communications equipment and foul weather gear on behalf of our portfolio of magazines. But, all of that kit I test comes as part of a journalistic sampling package. A lot of it goes back to the manufacturer very quickly and safety beacons, epirbs and so on are sent over to me as dummy units.

Yes that’s right. virtually all of the beacons you see online for photographic purposes are dummy units. They look exactly like the real thing. They attach to your lifejacket in exactly the same way as the real thing. They’re even weighted to have the same weight as the real thing. But what they don’t have is the working internal transmitter. This is a sensible move by manufacturers, as we still get to try out the beacon for testing purposes, fitting it to a lifejacket for example and being able to “activate” it without actually activating it.

So, it might surprise you to know that I only have one working unit, just the one fully functioning PLB of my own. And that PLB just so happened to be accidentally left behind on my boat in Azores earlier this year. I am due to join the Yachting Monthly Triangle race in a few weeks so my choices were to go and buy a new beacon (expensive), or fly home to my boat to fetch this one.(15 quid direct, thanks Ryanair!)

More options of beacons can be found in my comprehensive guide: Best personal locator beacons and AIS units: 16 top options for boating

You might choose to mount your PLB inside your lifejacket, attached to an oral tube. But personally I prefer to keep my AIS unit there. I like having two separate beacons, the AIS is useful for being recovered with a MOB situation and so having it attached to my lifejacket internally makes sense. A personal locator beacon though, the other kind of beacon like a mini epirb, well, I prefer to keep that on my belt. I don’t always carry it with me.

For example when I’m wizzing around localised waters, I ALWAYS want my AIS unit fitted to my lifejacket, but a PLB is a bit overkill for the river Hamble. I don’t carry the extra weight around if I don’t think it necessary.

I have a lifejacket side pouch that I attach to my Spinlock Deckvest and within this, this particular PLB fits nicely alongside a few snacks.

When I’m wearing a different lifejacket supplied by a boat owner, this PLB can be attached to the waist band if I’m heading offshore or out of sight of land.

My reasoning for retro, external attachment of a PLB is that there is more likelihood of needing to trigger a personal locator beacon when NOT a MOB. If you need to jump into your liferaft for example, your lifejackets might not be activated but you might choose to use your PLB in the situation. If you are in a boat fire and are unable to grab your ships epirb for any reason, the Personal Locator Beacon can be your backup. You don’t really want to go pulling your nicely packed, uninflated lifejacket apart to find the beacon to activate it.

The ability to manually activate and deactivate a beacon transmission can help rescuers see that you are able to activate the beacon manually, therefore, still alive and they’re looking for living casualties so search and rescue is still needed rather than search and recovery.

Situations of grave and imminent danger are pretty much any time you would issue a MayDay alert.

I personally like this beacon for a few reasons. It feels substantial in the hand, though it isn’t big, it has a solid feel with rubberised parts that give an extra rugged feel.

I like that it is a newer returnlink version, so it gives a blue light confirmation that the signal has reached the land centre.

I like the neoprene pouch that comes with it and the lanyard attachment at the base, allowing it to fit into the pouch and still be attached via the lanyard. (it doesn’t float so it definitely needs fastening on somewhere.)

I like that it can be activated within the pouch.

I’m not so much a fan of the way the topcap has to be snapped off in order to release the aerial and uncover the activation button. (it does come with a spare cap in the box)

The battery life is rated like all other PLBs meeting the same criteria and is stated as being 24hours. I’ve heard they last as midge longer than that but so far I’ve never had to use one in anger. Yet.

 

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