McMurdo Fast Find PLB leads Coast Guard to elderly sailor

An 80 year old man activated his McMurdo Fast Find Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) after getting into difficulty during a solo voyage to Belize from Houston, Texas.

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The incident gave yet another opportunity to the US Coast Guard to remind mariners to have a registered EPIRB or PLB on board their vessel and to file a float plan with family members and friends. In the case of the elderly owner of the 34ft yacht Enchantress correct registration of the Fast Find with search and rescue authorities and informing his family of his planned route meant the yachtsman could be located quickly
The man was 10 days into the trip when he reported that he could not cope with the stormy conditions on 15th December. He activated his Fast Find as well as putting out an emergency radio distress signal. The weather had been bad for a number of days.
A Coast Guard rescue helicopter, crew from Coast Guard Air Station Houston, an HU-25 Falcon rescue plane and crew from Coast Guard Air Station Corpus Christi were launched and the Enchantress was located approximately 115 miles south of Sabine, Texas.
Conditions were stormy with nearby lightening strikes which made for a tricky rescue but the man was hoisted and transported to Coast Guard Air Station Houston where he met by ambulance and taken to hospital.
The Fast Find was supplied by Triad Marine, whose spokesman commented “Thank you both to the Coast Guard and to the makers of the Fastfind 210 for a job well done. We are so happy to see our customer is safe and that a product we believe in proved itself once more.”

The Fast Find is the most compact, waterproof and versatile 406 MHz emergency location beacon available on the market. It weighs just 150g and is only 106mm long. A seafarer in trouble can activate the Fast Find and be confident of alerting the world’s professional search and rescue services swiftly, anywhere in the world. Fast Find operates on the global COSPAS SARSAT 406MHz satellite system, which is supported by international government search and rescue authorities.

178 lives have been saved in the US so far in 2009 by 406 MHz distress beacons like the Fast Find.