How to Use an Emergency Radio on a Boat

Video Transcript

"They want you to have a radio, a single side band radio is good, your VHF radio, within sight has a range just like a CB radio out there, so you want to go with a single side band, maybe a hand held or a ham radio so you can have extended range broadcasting and one of the other things that we'll be doing out there, we'll have to be reporting in every day, giving our position out on the water, so they can keep track of us. And this reporting goes to? It will be going to the race committee boat and so what they're going to be doing is putting it on a website so other people can track our progress throughout the race and plus it keeps track of us too. One of the requirements is that you have to check in everyday, if you don't check in everyday then they could scratch you off the race. One of the other things, they do require you to have a life raft, if there is only two people on board, preferably you want to go ahead and get a four man life raft, a two man would be pretty small. And if you have four people you probably want to go get a six man life raft. They require you to have flares, which normally during the day you run regular old hand held flares but out there they want you to have parachute flares, you need orange hand held flares, you need white flares, you need the whole gamut of flares. Another good thing to have when you're going offshore is an EPIRB, it gives your location, your latitude, your longitude there when you set it off, off there so if you have an accident, or you are in dire straits, you have an emergency such as your boat sinking, you set off this signal out there and they can find you if they have to."