"Some magazine recently had a special on personal epirbs where they test several of the new GPS enabled models. The results were pretty bad..."

I read that in either Snailing World or Sail. I think it was Sail.

I was suprised with the eye-opening test results because one expects these products to be robust and to work as advertised. One company in particular fared very poorly with their products. As much as these products cost and with as much that could be at stake when they are used, there should be a government agency, not a magazine, responsible for testing the manufacturers' claims. Since a multihuller's ditch kit is pretty much what is attached to his PFD when something happens, don't buy or rent an EPIRB until you read that article.