Flare Testing, and other flare discussion.

[s/v Faith]

Our club has the USCG aux coming out next month to do the Vessel Safety Checks.  I checked my stuff over this weekend and found I was out of date (yet again).

  I decided to seal my old stuff with my foodsaver vacuum packager.  I am thinking that keeping moisture from getting in should prolong it's life.

[AdriftAtSea]

S/V Faith-

If they are SOLAS-approved flares, and I hope everybody is getting SOLAS-approved flares as they are significantly better than the USCG ones, they're good for a very long time past their expiry date.  At the Safety At Sea seminar last March, they showed off the difference and also fired of some SOLAS-flares that were almost 10 years old.  :D

[Auspicious]

A thought based on the reference to hand-held flares: I bought a pack of 3 pairs of all-leather gardening gloves at Home Depot; I don't recall if they were $12/pack or $20/pack, but they seemed a good deal at the time. I keep one pair with my fishing gear (protect hands when boating a fish, which unfortunately doesn't happen much and readily available for anchor duty if necessary) and one pair in the waterproof canister with my flares. Since the gloves are in with the flares, I hope that in extremis I will remember to put them on before firing off a flare.

[AdriftAtSea]

One major advantage is that SOLAS-approved flares are generally safer to handle, as they tend not to drop slag, as the USCG-approved flares do. 

[Cmdr Pete]

This video demonstrates another way to dispose of your old flares

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/425689/guy_shoots_himself_in_the_head_with_flare_gun/

[CharlieJ]

I wrote about this in a post on TSBB and even did a separate posting about it since I feel it important. I decided people here would be far more likely to actually NEED these things ( hopefully not) so I decided to cut and paste the post here also. Here's what we did with flares last night.

After supper, we decided to adjourn to the beach to test some signal flares in among the fire works. We'd seen a parachute flare fired the evening before and wondered just what our flares looked like-

in a word- frightening!!!!

Laura and I had a plastic flare gun with 5 expired flares aboard Tehani so she had brought them home just for this. When we first opened the package we discovered that the gun itself could NOT be opened!!!!! I took a shot gun down so we could fire those flares anyway. The first flare fired soared into the sky a romping 25 feet???? and dropped into the water, where we could see it burn for another 45 seconds max. I finally forced the flare gun open enough ( it never really opened) to insert a flare and tried that- that went much better- maybe 100 feet. The third one I gave to Laura and it misfired- the firing pin made a dent in the primer, but it didn't go off. So I dumped that flare out, put in another and gave her back the gun- THAT one went and also went about 100 feet up. The one that misfired was tried again from the shotgun where it did go- it went about 75 feet up. Wolf fired off the final one and it again did about 100 feet. Burn time on all of them was MAYBE 45 seconds or so.

We then opened a package of hand held flares. THOSE all functioned as advertised, lighting easily and burning for three or four minutes. I made every one try theirs in the dark figuring you'd BETTER be able to ignite it in black conditions after all. THOSE flares were agreed to be worth while, but be SURE you hold them away from the boat and NOT over any part of you- they drip burning slag as they burn.

The consensus was the hand helds were worth having, the small plastic gun and 12 ga flares were pretty much worthless unless a rescue vessel was already aware of you and just needed something to home in on. We WILL be buying some of the parachute flares to put aboard- from the one we watched the night before THSE would give you a fighting chance of attracting attention- they soared high and lasted for 4 to 5 or more minutes as they slowly descended.

Yeah, they aren't cheap, but then neither is your life.

If you carry the plastic 12 Ga set, carry LOTS of flares- like a dozen at least.

And I sincerely hope no one here ever has to use a signal flare in earnest.

[Bill NH]

When I was shipping commercially I used to bring home the expired SOLAS flares if I was driving home from the ship...  The SOLAS-grade parachute flares are pretty impressive, both in altitude and burn time.  I did and still do carry them on board, plus a set of unexpired cheapies to keep the coasties happy.  I guess it's just like anything else, you get what you pay for (although I was lucky enough to get them for free...)

[s/v Faith]

CJ,

Same here. 

One year on the 4th of July I shot off some old 12 Gage aerial flares at the Park.

The performance was truly pathetic.....

  Just had part in discharging about 15 expired 12ga flares.  Had a great time doing it, these were shelf stock that had not been stored on a boat or ever opened.

  Of the 15 I shot, 3 were duds and at least 7 only went a few feet!  There were about 40 we fired and the numbers were pretty much similar.... not so good.

  I always figured that the expiration dates were pretty conservative.  My experience shows otherwise.

  The ideal launch angle is 45degrees, (for distance) and at best these things made about 50 yards... most well short of that.

  Yes, something other then 12ga is definitely in order for off shore work.    :-\ :-[ :o 8) :-\ >:( ;) :-[