On Sun, 30 Aug 2009 21:10:20 -0500, Vic Smith
wrote:

On Sun, 30 Aug 2009 15:36:34 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Sun, 30 Aug 2009 13:55:38 -0500, Vic Smith

Those 3 guys sitting on an upturned hull in the Gulf for a week does
NOT inspire in me much confidence in the CG.
Best not count on them, which is why personal preparation is so
important.
Not taking anything away from the CG, of course.
They can't be perfect.

That's not true at all - I don't know where you found that, but most
of it's bull****.

EPIRB signals initiate an immediate response - I know that for a fact
because I accidentaly set one off when I had my first Contender. The
CG will put out a call on 16 with Lat/Lon and ask any near by boats to
respond if able to do so - at least they do it in LIS and neighboring
waters. I was pretty freakin' embarrassed about the whole thing.

As it happened to me, they had a Falcon jet at New London, scrambled
that and they found me exactly where the EPIRB said I was - five miles
East of SW Ledge off Block Island.

The problem with air searches where there are no corresponding data
sets to work off of is that you have to cover a lot of terroritory at
low level against differing light conditions and you don't know what
you are looking for. Ever try to spot something from 700 feet, black
against the surface of the water? It's tough. It's hard on land. How
the hell do you miss four fire trucks, two ambulances in the middle of
a hay field? I've seen that happen first hand. I've been on SARs in
the air looking for lost hikers in the open desert and missed the
signals and signs. It sounds easy - it ain't.

These guys took a chance without having proper equipment or signaling
devices that they could get to quickly in case of emergency. It's not
the Coasties fault that these guys were morons.