Flares are an essential part of the contents of a boaters’ Grab Bag, says the RNLI.
Both red and white flares are included in its list of essential items, according to the RNLI website. The RNLI is a major user of Pains Wessex distress signals.
It asks, “If you had to abandon ship in a hurry, what would you need to stay alive?” What you choose could make the difference between survival and tragedy.
A Grab Bag contains everything you need in an emergency. Jon Oxenham, RNLI Community Safety Product Manager, says, “It’s the one place you can keep all the things you might need in the event of an emergency.”
The RNLI website says that on some trips, rescue could be several hours, or even days, away. “You need to be able to survive until help arrives. A Grab Bag helps you to do this – and can make your stay in a liferaft more bearable.”
Grab Bags may contain slightly different items, depending on how long your trip is, but they all should contain items for basic survival (like food, drinking water, things to warm you up), kit to help you get rescued (radio, flares, torch, whistle), medical supplies (first aid kit, personal medication) and navigational aids (GPS, charts).
Grab Bag list of essential items
The RNLI’s checklist of essentials consists of:
- White flares
- Red flares
- First aid kit
- Knife (covered)
- Seasickness tablets
- Clothing (rather than drysuit)
- Hand-held VHF
- Food
- Signalling mirror
- Torch (with spare batteries)
- Drinking water
- Hand-held GPS (with spare batteries)
- Whistle
- Navigational charts.
All-weather RNLI lifeboats contain Grab Bags. To illustrate the point in the website article is an image of a Pains Wessex Grab Bag.
RNLI Lifeboat Trainer, Peter Gale, says, “The Shannon class lifeboat has a big yellow grab bag. Inside, there are 15 white flares, 6 red pinpoint flares for signalling your location, 4 hand-held flares that you can use in day and night, and seasickness tablets. On the boat, there’s also a hand-held VHF, torches and some parachute flares, which you’d take with you in an emergency.”
The crews’ lifejackets are fitted with a flare and PLB pocket, so these items are always to hand.
Your Grab Bag should be able to float and keep the water out and be a bright colour like orange or yellow so it can be easily seen.
“It should be kept somewhere accessible – as close to companionway as possible without it being in the way. If you hit something and your boat starts flooding, you might only have minutes to get out,” says Jon Oxenham.
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