Thanks Don, (Ok, I'll bite).
It's loaded because I've published Wing Tip's set-up before and I'm a big supporter of DSC VHF radios. I guess the problem is I really take it personally when someone dies in a boating accident and I had the knowledge to prevent that death. I know it's stupid since these are only people I've heard about after the fact. Still people have died on the water I was on, on a day I was there, within a what could have been a few hundred yards. More importantly it was a big event and they were surrounded by boats, it's just they weren't equipped to save that life. I tore a Sail Magazine Editor "a new one" one year because they published an idyllic piece on Lake Tahoe sailing. He had gotten lucky and went out on a perfect, if not light day, and didn't check his facts. During the summer the winds ramp up from 5- 7 knots in the afternoon to 40 - 50 knots in the afternoon over a 4 -5 day period and then reset. The fun part is you can have everything under control until the winds detach from the steep mountains to the west and appear as a down draft mid lake with reversed flow (think eddy current) back towards the western shore. The same area that the editor said was idealic claimed an entire family in C22 that was not prepared a few years earlier. I love sailing Tahoe, but you have to bring your A game. The Standard Horizon DSC VHF in combination with my bottom dollar Standard Horizon CP150 GPS Chart Plotter is quite phenomenal in what it can do. When we receive the DSC Distress call it enters directly on a chart plotter as a waypoint. We can select it as a destination, plot a course, and retrieve an ETA in seconds. One more button will engage the auto pilot to run the course. Additional the Chart Plotter will alarm on charted depth in front of the boat in case the navigation solution was in error. I have the CP150 on my wheel guard and the RAM VHF control next to the combing compartment. That in the cockpit solution makes the difference between hearing a distress call and waiting to see if someone else got it and exploring my ability to respond instantly. DSC VHF radios also relay the call so a boat may be out of range of a high speed rescue boat but the relayed DSC distress call, which I didn't need to do anything to make happen, may get the rescue started. I'm sure other brands could have caught up to SH by now but I don't think the sailing public has been vocal at all about what they want. My install is 10 years old, yes I think it pre-dates any Rescue 21 rollout, and I have yet to find (it could be out there) an equivalent solution. If I had lost my CG station I'd be making sure other possible responders (Sheriff, Police, or Marina) boat.get equipped like Wing Tip even if it takes a bake sale to fund it. If there are enough private yachts with a DSC VHF that can relay the distress call you may no miss the Rescue 21 system, although it's hard to say you won't miss the CG station in the end. Since the MMSI number is enter and locked into the DSC VHF it is rare to have a false alarm since the call is traceable to the originating vessel. Every time I think about DCS I remember the write up on the sailboat heading south on the inter-coastal the got confused in Charleston harbor and put to sea. When they called mayday the CG operator heard a broken transmission but failed to act. Had the CG received a DSC Distress call with a valid MMSI, the nature of the emergency, and a GPS location they would have survived. Sorry, I just take it personally when someone dies in a boating accident who didn't have too. Phil Agur s/v Wing Tip Secretary, Call Sign WCW3485 IC27/270A MMSI 366901790 www.catalina27.org Vessel Doc# 1039809 ----- Original Message ----- From: Don Brooks To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, May 11, 2008 10:11 AM Subject: Re: catalina27-talk: What kind of VHF do you have? Phil Agur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Anyone that knows me knows it's a loaded question? Ok, I'll bite The Coast Guard Rescue 21 deployment has lagged beyond belief but you can buy the same capability (well maybe not the antenna range) for a few hundred and thereby fill in the holes the CG has. So what's on your bulkhead? A 10 year old RayMarine VHF, mounted over the stbd settee. Is a GPS permanently tied to your radio? No Is a Chart Plotter tied to your radio? No. Next radio might be. Don't look forward to stringing the wiring down the binnacle to make it happen. We had Rescue21 for a while. Now, we don't. If fact, the local Coast Guard station is probably going to close due to budget cuts. They have already stopped taking radio calls. The next station is 90 miles away and out of radio range. Is the Autopilot tied to you Chart Plotter? No. Never saw the need. If running the wires were convenient, I might, just for the novelty of it. Don Phil Agur s/v Wing Tip Secretary, Call Sign WCW3485 IC27/270A MMSI 366901790 www.catalina27.org Vessel Doc# 1039809 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.
