Automatic beacon activation saves the lives of seven stranded sailors

Kannad Marine, a business of the Orolia Group has helped save the lives of seven French sailors, whose catamaran capsized off the west coast of Scotland at the beginning of the month.

The seven sailors were caught off guard in sudden rough weather on Wednesday 1st August, causing their catamaran, Pampero, to capsize off the north of Mallaig, two miles from the Glenelg Peninsula.

Due to the suddenness of the capsize, the sailors were unable to manually activate beacons, send a radio mayday message or release a distress flare, but luckily the automatic activation of the onboard Kannad Marine GPS EPIRB on hitting the water, resulted in a quick alert to the coastguard in Stornoway.

After the beacon was activated at approximately 20:00, the coastguard received the alert and the Mallaig Lifeboat was able to locate the vessel at around 22:30 using the coordinates from the EPIRB.

The seven sailors were successfully rescued from the upturned twin-hull of their capsized catamaran, where they had managed to escape after initially being trapped inside the 52ft boat. 

Kannad Marine offers a range of emergency location beacon products including EPIRBS, PLBs (Personal Location Beacons), SARTs and AIS SRSs (Survivor Recovery Systems).

Kannad Marine’s range of EPIRBs and PLBs are designed to operate with the international COSPAS SARSAT satellite system, alerting search and rescue services in the event of an emergency by transmitting a coded message on the 406 MHz distress frequency.

The SafeLink EPIRB also includes a built-in GPS receiver ensuring that an accurate position of a casualty is relayed to the rescue services, in turn improving the speed of the recovery by updating the position of the beacon at regular intervals.

The SafeLink GPS EPIRB with manual bracket is available from £464 + VAT/ €520 + TAX.  For further information on Kannad Marine’s range of safety and emergency location beacon products visit www.kannadmarine.com.