&
Seen Heard
Safety Equipment
On Board Sari Timur
By Mark Blasky
As we are getting ready to bash our way to Palau
and Guam, someone asked us to write about the
safety equipment we have on board Sari Timur. It
could be argued that every piece of equipment on
Sari Timur contributes to her safety. But in reality
I know what they are asking. What equipment
do you buy to help make you safe while cruising?
Actually there are several items we classify as part
of our safety toolbox.
First and foremost for every piece of equipment
that goes into the toolbox for safety, is the need
for common sense. Each piece is just a tool to help
keep the boat and crew safe. One can have every
piece of safety equipment available and there is
not any one of them except maybe the common
sense one that can be solely relied upon. And even
with a well equipped toolbox and great common
sense sometimes still “stuff happens”!
But let’s start out with saying we figure the
best way to keep Sari Timur and her crew safe is
to stay on board. We have PFD (Personal Floatation
Devices) vests equipped with a safety harness. We
run jack lines which are two heavy duty flat straps
that run fore and aft on both the starboard and
port side. When on watch at night or rough weather
we are connected to the jacks by our tethers. We
also have something that is relatively new to the
offshore cruiser and that is a man overboard alert
device. This is made by a company called BriarTek
and is called an ORCA. And when it becomes wet
for a few minutes it activates a signal that triggers
the safety alert on our VHF radio which should
The Orcas and strobe light as Liferaft and inflated ditch bag and a green jack
well as super loud whistle
 line running to the right of the ditch bag
 inside the EPIRB, Flares, First aid kit, Handheld
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Us with PFDs are the posers wearing their PFDs,
Orcas and tethered to the jack line
wake the person who is off watch and alert them
that someone has fallen overboard. It also starts
flashing with a very bright LED and hopefully
keeps the victim visible until they are recovered.
BriarTek also manufacture a radio direction finder
for these but we didn’t purchase it. Before we had
the Orcas we had the Sea Marshall unit but this
device had electronic problems and needed a
separate receiver. Very kindly the agent that sold
it to us took it in exchange for the Orcas which
we are happy with. Even before we had the Orcas
we just had personal light strobes and hoped we
made enough racket when we went over to attract
attention to the off watch. We still have these and
as they are brighter than the Orca so we keep
them with our life vests as back up.
The best way to stay safe is to stay with the boat.
But if the boat sinks we have a 4 man inflatable
Avon life raft. We no longer have the survival kit
inside the life raft but carry a ditch bag that floats
and is filled with some granola bars, a torch, a hand
held GPS, some hand fishing gear, some water, a
Leatherman all purpose tool, spare batteries, flares,
and probably something that goes into its own
classification, our Epirb. An Epirb is an Emergency
Position Indicating Radio Beacon. These devices
Contents of the ditch bag has most of what goes
GPS, Batteries, torchlight, water, etc

Life ring, with strobe, the picture also shows the emergency jerry can of water,
buckets lashed to the rail and the AIS antennas above it.
 is to be run over at sea. We have a radar reflector
when triggered emit a radio distress signal that is
picked up by satellite and then retransmitted to
the respective shore emergency rescue services.
It gives time and position every time it transmits
so hopefully anyone launching a rescue operation
knows where to start looking. We also have our
inflatable dinghy ready to launch. When making
passage over open ocean we lash this on deck
rather than in the davits. But after the life raft the
plan is the dinghy would also be launched. All of
the stories I have read of long term survival in a
life raft have the victims eventually leaving the life
raft when it wears out and surviving in the dinghy.
We also stow a 30 litre jerry can of fresh water
lashed to the lifelines and two 6 litre bottles in
the cockpit hopefully for quick grabbing or later
retrieval if Sari Timur should sink. We also have the
life buoys and life jackets every boat has.
Keeping the boat from sinking is a good plan
and we have three electric bilge pumps, a manual
bilge pump and buckets to get water out. We have
emergency bungs for every thru hole fitting.
We also have a forward looking sonar by Echoscope
to hopefully keep us from running aground. This
is also advertised as a way to watch out for float
objects such as half submerged containers or in
this part of the world FADs (Fish Attractor Devices,
which are sometimes huge floating steel drums
designed to attract bait fish) but we do not feel
the sonar gives us enough warning for this. It is
Forward looking Sonar
excellent for keeping us off of reefs etc when
entering a narrow passage or anchoring. Echoscope
was also one of the few companies that offered to
repair their product after the lightning strike if we
bought new so as to have a spare! They also made
a custom transducer as our hull is extra thick where
the transducer is mounted. We like this product.
One of the most likely ways a vessel is to sink
and Amec AIS B transponder. This is arguably one of
the best safety items we have
purchased. All large ships are
now required to carry an AIS
system on board. Theoretically
this will alert them that we
are there and they can take
evasive measures. In reality
we find that there are still a
large number of ships that
ignore the warning. But it also
broadcasts the ships MMSI
number and often their name. VHF and SSB Ham Radio as well as
If we are on a collision course the pactor modem and off on the
right is the AIS receiver
with someone and not sure of
what action they are taking, or wish us to take, we
call them on the radio. We still often find they do
not answer. But with their vessel name and MMSI
number we can begin calling them specifically.
This usually embarrasses them enough to begin
a dialog with us immediately. Of course there are
still several boats that are bigger than Sari Timur
that do not carry AIS or chose not to turn it on and
thus the mandatory lookout and Radar are helpful.
We have a ham radio which is equipped with
the ability to transmit and receive on the SSB
frequencies. Though not legal for everyday use on
the SSB frequencies it does allow us to transmit
in an emergency on the maritime emergency
frequencies. It also allows us to transmit our daily
progress reports and receive weather grib files and
very short text messages via Pactor. This is a very
useful device to have when transiting the pieces of
ocean we are about to which are so susceptible to
typhoons and extreme weather. We are hoping to
use a weather routing service to guide us around
the tropical storms that build so quickly in this
part of the world. They would use the Pactor email
address to keep us up to date.
There are several other safety items that are
available but as of now this is what we have and
deem enough to make our journey as safely as
possible.
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