Maybe you already know this and I'm wasting space, but I wanted to reiterate something that has been in several publications recently: 121.5 and 243 MHz EPIRBs have been banned by the Coast Guard as of last month. The satellites that pick up those freqs will be offline in 2009 (maybe sooner, according to my last fotune cookie). I only saw a couple of teams last year with the 406 MHz EPIRBs - they are very pricey.

As a tip - the Boat US Foundation rents personal 406 MHz EPIRBs for $40/week. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Good luck, you swabbies. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

well john, you know what they say

buy a $10 helmet for a $10 head ... :P


I JUST reminded Trey about this a second ago. Weird.

I checked into this, the $50 dollar rental units are the big floating/strobe units, and are supposed to remain in the "suitcase" that they are isssued in unless needed. I'm working on a deal for all the Tybee racers for the ACR ResQFix PLB that is intended as a personal unit and weighs only 10 ounces. More to follow.

Wow! That thing just came out this month! Nice...

Boat US's web site say they have the small personal unit for rent in addition to the bigger strobe unit. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

You can rent smaller PLB unit at www.plbrentals.com

Watertribe guys manage to cut a deal with both Pains Wessex and ACR dealers. Hearsay that if you call any of them and tell that you are planning to enter watertribe challenge next year, you may get same price as watertriber's. Or may not...

Note - you will need to register your unit with Coast Guard. It is straigth forward process, just don't delay it till last day....