Life Raft Servicing is Important

In this post I discussed why you should service your life raft, Today I would like to touch on the subject of servicing again. Servicing the life raft is the life of the raft, we see several life rafts come in that have not been serviced in several years and many times this results in putting a really good life raft out of commission or a really high servicing bill.

Some things to keep in mind about serving is that when you bring a life raft to a service station a technician will open the life raft and inspect it for malfunctions, air tests will be performed and all parts of the life raft and equipment are inspected and replaced if they are deemed out of date or non-functioning. If your life raft cannot be certified as safe and usable it will be decommissioned.

Keep in mind there are items in a life raft they can cause problems, recently we opened a life raft that had corroded batteries in the flash light. The battery acid had eaten through the flash light and gotten all over much of the equipment. Imagine finding this out on the ocean instead of at the shop. This particular life raft was 7 years overdue for servicing.

Life rafts are as important to a boat as the brakes on a car and like the brakes they need to be serviced. For more information on life raft servicing or to visit our store and see an open life raft contact us. We are proud to support Maritime Safety and Education through community outreach; we take pride in not just selling and servicing a product but educating customers on how to use a product.

Why Service Your Life Raft

Life rafts come in a variety of brands, sizes, person capacities, and have a variety of equipment package options. Every life raft is inflated the same way via CO2 cylinder but that is pretty much the only thing that is exactly the same. Life rafts are meant to be opened and serviced, some manufactures say every year and some manufactures have vacuum bag sealed life rafts that are every three years.

What happens when a life raft is serviced?
The life raft is open and the dates of all the internal equipment are determined so the service technician will know what needs to be replaced. The date of the last CO2 cylinder refill is determined and if it has been five years then the life raft is gas inflated, tested and the cylinder gets refilled.  The technician will also air and pressure test the life raft for defects and leaks.
All of these processes help ensure your life raft has a longer life and the best chance of working the way it is supposed to when you need it.

What are some things I can expect at each service?
If you have a life raft with one year service intervals the first 2 services will be pretty basic and include replacing of repair cement (glue) and batteries for the flash light as well as the set of spares.
There will be a charge for the service currently ours is $400.00 but they vary by station. You may also have charges for manufactures certificates, gaskets, seals, bursting straps called commonly bands (only on container style life rafts).
Three year service interval life rafts and the third service on a one year life raft will incur charges for all of the one year items in addition to replacing all of the flares in the raft. Also a three year service interval life raft will be in a vacuum bag that must be replaced at this service, the bags typically cost around $150.00 and up but vary with manufacture and the size of the life raft.

What happens if I skip a service or two?
Typically the rafts will be fine if they have been stowed properly and not submersed in water, however sometimes natural conditions and water can make the life of a life raft shorted especially when it has not been opened and allowed to breathe, dry and be cleaned if needed.
Also not servicing a raft at the manufactures intervals will void the manufactures warranty of the life raft.
The worst thing we see in waiting to service is the cost becomes high because you have so many things to replace at one time. You will incur however many years of charges on one bill and this often makes customers feel like it is not worth it for a service, even if the raft is in very good condition.
Like anything you purchase there are care instructions and not following them can result in costly repairs and frustrations. Why would you risk your life saving equipment failing when you need it.
Should you have questions or concerns about your life raft and servicing the life raft please contact us.
To avoid extra high services bills, maintain the warranty of the life raft and ensure the equipment is working properly servicing is key!

I Fish the Bay Do I Need a PLB?

Yes even if you just fish the bay you need a PLB!
The story below could have been written differently, with the help of a PLB (Personal Locator Beacon).


Two boaters rescued after 17 hours in the water
Posted: 09 Aug 2010 09:18 AM PDT
HOUSTON – The crew of a towing vessel rescued two boaters Monday morning after their vessel capsized Sunday afternoon in Trinity Bay.
The crew of the T/V Diamond Back rescued the two people at approximately 8 a.m. Monday morning. The survivors left in a small pleasure craft Sunday from Eagle Point in Galveston County, and were forced into the water after their vessel capsized at approximately 3 p.m. They reported that they were unable to make a distress call.
A 25-foot Response Boat – Small from Coast Guard Station Houston is en route to transport the two back to shore. Their survival is attributed to wearing their life jackets and staying with their vessel after it capsized.
“Due to the circumstances of their situation, they were unable to make a distress call,” said Bill Segelken, an operations unit controller at Sector Houston-Galveston. “The fact that they were wearing their life jackets, significantly increased their ability to remain afloat throughout the night.”
“Staying with their vessel after it capsized, contributed to them being visible and able to be rescued,” he said.
According to the National Safe Boating Council, 85-90% of people who drown in boating accidents are not wearing life jackets.


These boaters and so many others could have decreased their time spent in the water by having a PLB on them. When you are on any boat in any body of water anything can happen. These boaters were in an area they felt was relatively safe and they were smart to have life jackets but they could have been out of the water much sooner with the help of a PLB.

This story has a happy ending of rescue not recovery but the rescue could have been much sooner with the right equipment. There are PLBs as small as a mobile phone now, that cost less than a lot of phones, so not having one is just a matter of not wanting to have one. Put yourself in those soggy shoes and ask how long would you want to be in the water especially over night. Even near shore and in the bay a PLB attached to your life vest could save your life.

As Small as most Mobile phones sells for $279.00

Buy it Here

use Coupon Code BLOG at check out to save $25.00

This Larger PLB unit is full of features and will come with a belt clip, lanyard and floats!

Also now with yearly subscription you can get the "I'm OK" service to learn more visit 406 Link 

$395.00

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Use Coupon code BLOG at check out to save $25.00

Don't go on any outdoor adventure without the peace of mind a PLB can bring.

Spring is On the Way

Spring begins on March 20th....Have you made plans for using your boat? Are you getting ready for a fun summer on the water?
Triad Marine has everything you need to spruce up an old dinghy including a full service factory authorized repair facility.
We have parts and accessories as well as repair materials for the hands on do it yourself kind of people.
If you don't think your dinghy is worth sprucing up and you are thinking of a new one we can help. We sell quality name brand inflatable boats.
Our sales staff is committed to knowing about the boats we sell. We do not sell products that we have no knowledge of. We are an inflatable boat dealership not a warehouse store and not a super marine store. Why settle for any inflatable boat when you can buy a quality inflatable boat.

Spring specials and closeouts available take a peak at Triad's Webstore

Thoughts for Thursday

LIfe Raft

Dinghy

Today’s Thursday thought will be about Life Rafts and Dinghies!

Many of our customers come through our doors ready to purchase a dinghy… Never once do they mention a life raft. I have gotten to where sometimes I just ask “Do you have a life raft on the boat?” And here are two common responses I get


1. Yes but I could not tell you when we last serviced it …it came with the boat


2. No we are going to use the dinghy if we get in trouble…..


So here are my thoughts on each of these responses


1. SO you don’t know when the life raft was serviced last…How do you know it works? I guess some people are willing to take the chance that the CO2 that is in the bottle will still be there and still fill up the life raft….So this happens now…what does the equipment inside look like…is the raft going to stay together… Well having it serviced to meet the manufactures guidelines you increase the chances of everything working correctly on the life raft. You are more likely to produce a positive result and you will feel better knowing this. There are never any guarantees when you are in a survival situation but I like to think upping the odds sure feels nice.


2. Ok so you want to use the dinghy as a life raft….Life rafts are designed to deploy in less than one minute….Good to know in a survival situation because seconds can make the difference… Lets say you are in a weather related disaster and the wind is up, seas are high and your dinghy is not even inflated…Well it takes someone about 12-15 minutes to inflate the average 9-10 foot dinghy with a foot pump. This is in favorable conditions…OK so it is inflated… You have to get it into the water! No easy process here….and every boat is different. Once you get in the dinghy in the water well like I said the seas are high and the wind is blowing hard so your dinghy will likely turn over…Hopefully it will not blow away when this happens…Why won’t the life raft turn over and blow away? Well it is the ballast bags under the life raft; once you deploy the raft and get it into the water the ballast bags fill with water and help hold the raft down against the wind. The ballast bags also help the raft from flipping over…So there you have my thoughts comparing a life raft and a dinghy are like comparing an apple and an orange…They are not one in the same and they both have a purpose and should have a place on your boat!

Boat Number Plates Custom Made for your Department

These custom reflective lettering patches are made by the folks at Boat Number Plate, these were custom ordered for the Jamaica Beach Fire Department. Here at Triad Marine we can professionally glue these onto your department's inflatable boat. We will be happy to work with you on a quote and the customization that best suits the needs of your department and will fit your boat the best. Forget about cracking paint and spray on stencils, this is an investment and will last for years to come. As a matter of fact boat number plate guarantees the lettering for 10 years against fading! Call today for your quote and stop repainting your departments ID every few months!

See the Boat number plate website HERE

SPOT messenger or PLB you decide!

What’s the difference between a SPOT and either a Personal Locator Beacon or an EPIRB?We like to say it’s an apples to oranges comparison. If your intention is to buy a life saving device, the most important part is to do your research and ask the right questions. We like the SPOT product, it’s a neat little tracking device, but it’s absolutely not a replacement for an EPIRB or Personal Locator Beacon.

What are the power and frequency differences?Power and Frequency are two key areas to consider when researching a life saving device. If you’re not an engineer, these two subjects can be a little intimidating. Think about it like this: Satellites are thousands of miles away from earth, so your beacon’s signal needs to have enough power to travel that far and be able to go through anything between you and the satellite (trees, weather, out of slot canyons, etc.).

Power

SPOT is powered by 400 milliWatts while ACR 406 MHz PLBs and EPIRBs use 5 Watts. Think about the Total® cereal commercial where they show you how many bowls of the other cereal you need to eat in order to get the nutrition from one bowl of Total. In our example, you would need 12.5 SPOT units to equal the POWER of one ACR PLB or EPIRB. When your signal has to travel 22,000 miles to reach a satellite, you want to make sure you have more than enough power to get it there!

Frequency

The basic principles of frequency are that the lower the frequency, the easier it can penetrate buildings, trees and meteorological activity that appear between the transmitting device (PLB, EPIRB or SPOT) and the receiving device (the satellites). FM radios and TV channels work on a lower frequency which is why they can penetrate buildings and the environment pretty easily. Now think about radar which uses a really high frequency. Radar works by hitting an object and bouncing off, that’s how radar knows where to place an airplane on the radar screen. So the higher the frequency, the less likely it can penetrate things in between, the lower the frequency, the easier it can penetrate. 406 MHz PLBs and EPIRBs use a dedicated frequency set up by the search and rescue community that is in the same range as UHF TV stations. SPOT uses the 1.6GHz frequency which is four times higher in the frequency spectrum. This means SPOT’s frequency is four times less likely to go through an object or weather than the lower 406 MHz frequency.

Summary

Considering power, combined with frequency, ACR’s 406 MHz beacon stands head and shoulders above satellite messenger systems like SPOT. ACR has 12.5 times more power and is four times more likely to penetrate objects in between the beacon and the satellite than SPOT.
Testing and ApprovalsSPOT is not a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB). We’ve seen some websites calling it one, but make no mistake, it is not a PLB. Personal Locator Beacons, like EPIRBs, must be submitted to an independent test lab that verifies the frequency, operating life, testing in extreme temperatures, environmental testing, etc. From there, the product must go to Cospas-Sarsat, USCG and finally the FCC (or other comparable agencies in each country) for approval to certify that the EPIRB/PLB meets the standards for Radio Technical Commission for Maritime Services (RTCM) and that it exceeds required operating and mechanical conditions that will appear in the marine environment. PLBs and EPIRBs are rigorously tested by governing agencies to confirm they will work properly in the environment. This is a big difference from SPOT which only has to self-test and self certify that it meets Part 15 FCC. If you are not familiar with Part 15, check out your garage door opener, it is approved with the same self certified rule.

Made in the USA vs. Made in China

ACR PLBs and EPIRBs are MADE IN THE USA, SPOT is made in China. While outsourcing a product to Asia can ultimately reduce the cost to manufacture a product, you also lose process control over the manufacturing, which is key to Quality. ACR strongly believes that products whose sole intention is to save lives must work the first time every time, PERIOD. The only way to meet this goal is to oversee the entire manufacturing process and test, retest, and test again during the process. If you watch our factory tour videos on our website, Facebook or YouTube, you will see the extreme steps we take to make sure we have a zero defect ratio. We actually had to email SPOT’s customer service to find out where they manufacture their units because they do not mark this information on the box, in the product support manual or on their website. “Axonn is the manufacturer and they out source labor in China” – Raquel Talarico, SPOT Inside Sales and Marketing (raquel.talarico@findmespot.com).
What does Search and Rescue (SAR) say about the differences?A 406 MHz signal coming from an EPIRB/PLB is recognized by SAR as a true emergency, and they act immediately. By law, search and rescue is required to find and turn off any 406 MHz beacon once activated. Search and Rescue has made it very clear that SPOT and other tracking gadgets are to be treated as a missing persons report: until they get more information regarding the distress message, they are going to wait and see, and not deploy their forces for the possibility that someone simply has a flat tire on the side of the road and needs help. Additionally, if the SPOT unit is unable to download and retransmit a GPS position (see frequency and power issues above), SAR has no idea where the transmission has come from and will not put their forces in danger looking for a needle in a hay stack.

Redundancies

Murphy’s Law has taught us all that whatever can go wrong will go wrong. We embrace that philosophy with every product we make so that you are given every opportunity available to get rescued. PLBs and EPIRBs have multiple ways to contact SAR in order to get you rescued. SPOT has one single transmission method. PLBs and EPIRBs can contact SAR via 406 MHz, which locates your beacon using Doppler Shift, it can contact SAR using GPS data and it also has a 121.5 MHz homing frequency so when SAR forces get a few miles away from you, they can home in directly on your beacon and find you faster. SPOT uses GPS only to send its location. If you cannot download GPS, SAR will have no idea where you are.
Satellite Monitoring406 MHz signals are monitored by a governing agency in each country. In the U.S. that’s the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and in Canada its The National Search and Rescue Secretariat. These agencies maintain the registration, and alert search and rescue of any activation. SPOT has hired a company called GEOS to monitor and alert search and rescue of an activation. The Cospas-Sarsat and NOAA have had over 26+ years of experience monitoring these frequencies and alerting Search and Rescue. GEOS is relatively new and not well known to the SAR community and does not have authorized use of the SAR system.

Coverage

EPIRBs and PLBs use the Cospas-Sarsat satellite system which contains 2 different satellite systems (LEOSAR – Low earth orbiting and GEOSAR – Geostationary). These two systems cover every inch of the planet. SPOT tracker is part of Globalstar and uses the Globalstar (Nasdaq: GSAT) satellite system which only covers a certain percentage of the earth, but has quite a few locations that are undetectable.

Experience

If you had to have knee replacement surgery, would you have your family doctor do the procedure or would you rather have someone who has nothing but knee replacement experience, someone who helped write the latest surgery techniques, someone who teaches other doctors how to do knee replacement surgery? The Cospas-Sarsat satellite system has been in place since 1982; it is a collaborative system of the worlds search and rescue community dedicated to saving lives. The system is credited with saving over 24,500 lives thus far. Of all of the registered 406 MHz beacons, ACR accounts for more than 60 percent. We have over 25+ years of experience building life saving beacons, 53 years of experience building life saving signaling products. When you buy an ACR product, every single product comes with that experience, knowledge and lessons learned of how to effectively build the world’s most quality life saving products available. The Globalstar satellite system began commercial service in 1999 and has had a shaky operating life thus far. The satellite system was designed for voice communications and SPOT (launch in December of 2007) is their first product aimed at providing a form of safety.

Overall

One other thing to be aware of is that SPOT requires an annual subscription fee of $99 or $149.99 if you want tracking. The device cannot be used until the subscription fee is paid. The 5 year ownership of a SPOT unit is much more expensive than a PLB or EPIRB: $149 unit cost, $499 in subscription fees, $250 for tracking fees, plus GEOs insurance (total 5 year cost can range between a minimum of $648 to as high as $1,649). If the Globalstar company were to close, your SPOT tracker would not work anymore. EPIRBs/PLBs do not require a subscription fee since they use the Cospas-Sarsat satellites (a humanitarian SAR system fully funded by member states of the U.N.). If you are looking for a tracking device that does not have to work every time, get a SPOT. If you want a life saving device, designed and manufactured to work when your life depends on it, get an ACR EPIRB or PLB.

This was taken from the folks at ACR and I thank them for taking the time to write this!

The Tale of Two Life Rafts

The tale of two rafts
Once upon a time in a factory far far away two life rafts were packed …twins in fact. Packed with care and shipped out to their new owners. One lucky raft got an owner who cared for him and serviced him according to the manufactures book. The other poor raft was tossed on the boat in a storage locker and never serviced. Twenty years and many safe trips later the good owner took his faithful well cared for raft to be serviced and as thing turned out a life raft ages when you inflate it with the CO2 gas. This would be his fourth time to get gas inflation, and as it turns out life raft years are not people years they are more like dog years. The poor life raft could not pass his inspection and so the good owner let him go and ordered a new one. The twin raft lived a much different life and had never been serviced. His owner took him off of the boat wiped off the years of dirt and grime and snapped a great picture. He then placed the picture on the internet with a for sale sign. Some poor shopper thought it was a great deal to pick up this fine piece of life saving equipment for only one fourth the costs of a new one. So after completing the sale the new owner noticed the inspection on the raft was not current and diligently to it to be serviced. After 20 long years of hanging out in the sun, rain, cold and wet the poor old raft was in terrible shape and was ashamed to even be opened in front of anyone for he knew he could save the life of no one. His valves did not work, his CO2 bottle only two thirds full his seems dried and aged. He knew he could not hold the air or even survive the CO2 inflation for this is hard on an old life raft. As the service tech fired the bottle and the raft inflated only half way and the seems were barely holding. All his equipment was old and unable to be used as it had been wet for many years causing it to mold and mildew. The smell oh he knew he would smell awful and was glad he could not cry tears for he would have many. Packed all those years ago with such love and care given a job like no other; possibly saving someone’s life oh how great he was. But the years of neglect were showing now and the new owner was in disbelief, how someone could sell him something so bad. As the new owner sign the condemnation he thought for a moment and though he was out some money at least he and his family would not be in the ocean when they discovered the poor old life raft was past his prime and unable to do the job of saving them.
THE END

Focus on Service - No job to big or to small

Well today's product focus is more of our services rather than product. I would like to fill you in on some of the other things we do besides sell inflatable boats, sell life rafts, service life rafts and sell safety equipment. We also repair inflatable boats of all brands. We pride ourselves in being factory certified to perform any repair task. The pictures above are some re-gluing of attachments and a bolt rope on a 21 foot boat. This is a labor intensive process that has to start with the correct preparation work first. After that is completed it requires careful measuring and a climate controlled area as well. By gluing in and area with little humidity and a cool surface we ensure a proper patch job that is going to last much longer than one that is done in the wrong conditions. If you have any questions about repairs or need a repair we have the knowledge and experience to make sure the job gets done right.