That ACR Epirb Could Save Your Life

by Capt. David Hare on 5 Sep 2006 While cruising more than 20 years ago, thieves broke into my sail boat and stole all of my valuables. To hide their fingerprints, they took the five-gallon jug of gasoline used for my dinghy’s outboard and burned the interior of my vessel.

I returned to find my home sitting on the bottom of the creek I was in at the time..

After refloating the boat • I picked her up with a crane and took her to a boat yard • I shovelled debris out of the hull and dumped it 25 feet overboard to the ground below. During that process, I tossed over a much melted ACR EPIRB. Convinced the device was destroyed, I didn’t think much about it and continued to shovel away for hours.

That night, sleeping on the hard underneath my disaster, I woke to the search light of a large, loud helicopter hovering overhead. My brain cleared when I heard the pilot’s voice on a loud speaker: 'There is an EPIRB activated down there. Are you OK?'

I waved my hands in acknowledgement, then quickly dug through the pile of blackened wreckage for the melted plastic transmitter. I had to smash open the case to disconnect the battery cables.

The folks at Ft. Lauderdale-based ACR Electronics know what they’re doing. Though my life didn’t need saving that night, their equipment has helped save the lives of more than 17,000 other mariners around the world since they started making safety equipment in 1956.

ACR Electronics is celebrating its 50th year as a global leader in survival technologies for the military as well as the marine, aviation and space industries.

For the military, ACR’s survival beacons, hand-held VHF radios and Firefly emergency pocket strobes have saved thousands of our aviators and soldiers.

Even the crew of Apollo 13 relied on ACR’s magnesium-powered pen light in 1970 when power failed, providing the sole source of light as they worked to get their capsule back to Earth.

The off-shoot of the military impetus has led the company into today’s principal arena, the non-military outdoor recreational market in search and rescue technologies.

ACR’s rescue devices include Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRBs), Emergency Locating Transmitters (ELTs), personal locating beacons (PLBs), VHF radios, search and rescue transmitters (SARTs) and water-activated lights usually attached to PFDs and ring buoys. An EPIRB or ELT is a 406 MHZ waterproof transmitter of last resort for use when all other means of self rescue are not possible.

Building upon the company’s world-renowned reputation for reliability, company President Paul Frank, a 25-year employee of ACR, said he plans to increase ACR’s strong brand identity and bolster its newest endeavors in the outdoor equipment and bridge information segments, including automatic identification systems (AIS).

ACR’s informative Web site (www.acrelectroncis.com) provides a list of dealers, repair facilities and, most interestingly, a series of letters from a variety of people around the world who have used ACR’s products to save their lives.

In January, for example, two women capsized their 24-foot rowboat in the mid-Atlantic after 47 days at sea. They activated their ACR EPIRB and clung to the overturned hull. A C-130 flew for 10 hours to the EPIRB’s signal, then vectored a tall ship to the site, rescuing the women after just 16 hours.

In April 2005, two scuba divers off of Bradenton, Fla., had a navigational awareness disconnect and surfaced well down current from their dive boat. They activated an ACR AquaFix personal EPIRB. After five hours, a Coast Guard vessel found them.

Of course, it is vital and mandatory that the beacon is registered with authorities. This process is handled simply online through ACR’s Web site or at www.beaconregistration.noaa.gov by completing a form.

Captains should understand that due to so many false alarms, rescue authorities do not respond until the shore-side person designated during the registration process is contacted and verification is made that indeed the vessel is at sea.

For this long-distance sailor who has often spent a month at a time in the Southern Ocean, I am convinced that ACR’s products are the way to insure one’s survival, either on land or at sea. If I had lost my mast or worse, had to take to a life raft, I would have done so with the knowledge that my ACR EPIRB would have a rescue mission under way in a couple of hours.


Contact Capt. David Hare at david@hare.com.