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Amazing story and the pilot of that boat is lucky to be alive. I think larger center consoles should ship standard with a wireless safety lanyard instead of a w

Amazing story and the pilot of that boat is lucky to be alive. I think larger center consoles should ship standard with a wireless safety lanyard instead of a wired one, because very few people seem to actually use the wired lanyard because it’s inconvenient. this is the exact situation where that would help.

blamazon 4y ago
Wireless lanyard, today I learned! Looks like a complete setup from 'FELL Marine' can be had for less than 300 bucks. That is very little money for peace of mind.
- lazyant 4y ago
  60% 1 star ratings on Amazon (failing device), still no peace of mind but better than nothing :-(
  - blamazon 4y ago
    I was not able to reproduce this result. Can you link?
    - ghaff 4y ago
      I assume this. https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B075MMHYMK/ https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B075MMHYMK/ Overall the rating is pretty good but definitely a number of one stars. The challenge with a lot of safety and backup systems is that you might never need them, but if you do need them they absolutely have to work.
      - blamazon 4y ago
        For what it's worth I flipped through the 1 star, 2 star, and 3 star reviews and found one that indicated a false negative, the rest seemed to indicate false positive. With it being a predominantly self-installed electrical system I question if every reviewer's install was done correctly.
      - Aeolun 4y ago
        All the failure modes seem to have to do with the engines not starting when someone needs them, which sounds ok to me. Or maybe that’s survivorship bias, and the ones where the engines do not properly cut out are never in a position to review.
        tempestn 4y ago
        I doubt literal survivorship bias plays much of a role, given the number of people who actually die this way is tiny. Maybe that was a joke though. The XKCD issue would be more common though - people who are happy with it because they've never had to test it.
    - lazyant 4y ago
      https://www.amazon.ca/product-reviews/B075MMHYMK/ref=acr_dp_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&reviewerType=all_reviews#reviews-filter-bar https://www.amazon.ca/product-reviews/B075MMHYMK/ref=acr_dp_... top result in Canada
      - blamazon 4y ago
        That listing has two total ratings, one is 5 star and one is 1 star, with no textual reviews. Doesn't feel like useful data to me.
  - RockRobotRock 4y ago
    https://xkcd.com/937/ https://xkcd.com/937/
    - mcv 4y ago
      This got me thinking about survivorship bias in ratings for life-saving devices. If the device fails to save your life, you're not going to be able to give it a poor rating.
  - bsder 4y ago
    Anyone who buys a safety system from Amazon is completely out of their gourd.
    - culopatin 4y ago
      What difference does it make? Is an iPhone from Amazon worse than one from the Apple Store?
      - omeid2 4y ago
        Even with something so _standard_ the likelihood of getting a knockoff on Amazon is orders of magnitude higher than Apple Store. Buying a device directly from the vendor comes with a degree of responsibility that you can't afford with buying from 3rd parties (seller), on a 3rd party marketplace (amazon).
      - lozenge 4y ago
        Amazon's never sold fake iPhones as they would be easy to spot, however they have sold, say, dangerous eclipse glasses. Most people do not have the equipment or expertise to test eclipse glasses before relying on it to save their sight.
- StianOvrevage 4y ago
  I installed the Fell Marine Mob+ myself on my 23 foot day cruiser a year ago and it works very well. The only problem I've had is false positive cut-offs when I'm on the dock untying or when I prepare to dock and I use the arm with the wireless FOB on in the rear compartments of the boat. I could probably fix it by angling the antennae so that it was upright instead of pointing out horizontally behind the base unit, but TBH it's such a infrequent issue and only happens at no/low speed anyway that I haven't bothered. On the plus side at least I know that it does cut the engine and probably would in a real situation as well.
  - brk 4y ago
    Go out with a buddy sometime on a day with a light wind. Put your boat at a slow cruise and then jump off (carefully). See if you can actually get back to your boat before you’re exhausted (and need your buddy to pull around and pick you up). In a light wind or current an average boat is still going to be moving faster than most people can swim. The wireless kill switch is good. But pair it with an inflatable PFD.
    - blamazon 4y ago
      It's a tough engineering challenge but it be cool if there was some kind of collapsible 'foot flippers' (is there a more technical term?) one could pull out of like a tube attached to a PFD. I was watching the video of that boat that rolled at the Columbia river outlet in Oregon and the USCG rescue swimmer was astoundingly fast with the fins on.
      - nradov 4y ago
        There are folding fins now available for travelling scuba divers. However, they are still rather bulky and not practical for boaters to carry on a PFD. If the boat is moving faster than a couple knots you won't catch it even with fins. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/exotech/folding-fins-a-true-compact-fins-no-compromises https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/exotech/folding-fins-a-...
    - StianOvrevage 4y ago
andrewem 4y ago
The guy who fell in the water talks about that here: “Specifically, he wants people to know there are wireless killswitches available that can attach to passengers as well as the captain.” https://www.wwaytv3.com/i-was-going-to-die-man-goes-overboard-40-miles-off-topsail-beach-saved-by-father-and-son/ https://www.wwaytv3.com/i-was-going-to-die-man-goes-overboar...
wil421 4y ago
There’s some fishing guys on YouTube I watch and some of them have an app on their phone to shut the motor off. If they fall overboard the motor shuts off when the phone isn’t close enough. Some also wear automatically inflated life jackets but as a kayaker I don’t trust them.
- andrewflnr 4y ago
  Specifically for kayak-related reasons?
  - Kon-Peki 4y ago
    Most likely. They are not supposed to trigger when getting wet, even very wet, but are supposed to trigger when you go into the water. You really shouldn’t wear an auto-inflating PFD in a situation where going into the water isn’t 100% a bad thing. Kayaking seems to be one of those activities where you wouldn’t want it. Even dinghy sailing/racing seems like a poor use case. In case anyone is unfamiliar with them, though, they all have a manual pull handle that is supposed to trigger the CO2 canister, and as a 3rd backup they even have a tube you can pull up to your face and a one-way valve so you can blow them up with your mouth.
- malandrew 4y ago
  IMHO aUrooj inflated life jackets generally make no sense for kayaking. It’s too easy to end up in the drink casually and it’s like $60+ per re-arming kit. Are those fishing kayaks so stable that they have very little expectation of going overboard comparable to being on a powerboat or sail boat? I use touring and whitewater kayaks myself. I kayak and sail so I have life jackets for both use cases (two type V rescue jackets for kayaking and 4 type V inflatables for sailing to accommodate friends and better the much safer European spinlock deckvests, which are not USCG approved, so I keep USCG approved inflatables on board too)
- sitkack 4y ago
  > an app on their phone to shut the motor off. The failure risk here is the phone doesn't go with you and it keeps chugging along.
duxup 4y ago
This is one of those things that I always wondered about. The risks are really apparent though for anyone out on a boat and it just doesn't seem to be the standard operating procedure for most folks.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  This is not something I ever considered until I played Stormworks, and my boat kept running away from me every other hour.
analog31 4y ago
Moreover, the lanyard should include a panic button that sends out a SOS from the boat's radio.

blamazon 4y ago

Wireless lanyard, today I learned! Looks like a complete setup from 'FELL Marine' can be had for less than 300 bucks. That is very little money for peace of mind.

lazyant 4y ago
60% 1 star ratings on Amazon (failing device), still no peace of mind but better than nothing :-(
- blamazon 4y ago
  I was not able to reproduce this result. Can you link?
  - ghaff 4y ago
    I assume this. https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B075MMHYMK/ https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B075MMHYMK/ Overall the rating is pretty good but definitely a number of one stars. The challenge with a lot of safety and backup systems is that you might never need them, but if you do need them they absolutely have to work.
    - blamazon 4y ago
      For what it's worth I flipped through the 1 star, 2 star, and 3 star reviews and found one that indicated a false negative, the rest seemed to indicate false positive. With it being a predominantly self-installed electrical system I question if every reviewer's install was done correctly.
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      All the failure modes seem to have to do with the engines not starting when someone needs them, which sounds ok to me. Or maybe that’s survivorship bias, and the ones where the engines do not properly cut out are never in a position to review.
      - tempestn 4y ago
        I doubt literal survivorship bias plays much of a role, given the number of people who actually die this way is tiny. Maybe that was a joke though. The XKCD issue would be more common though - people who are happy with it because they've never had to test it.
  - lazyant 4y ago
    https://www.amazon.ca/product-reviews/B075MMHYMK/ref=acr_dp_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&reviewerType=all_reviews#reviews-filter-bar https://www.amazon.ca/product-reviews/B075MMHYMK/ref=acr_dp_... top result in Canada
    - blamazon 4y ago
      That listing has two total ratings, one is 5 star and one is 1 star, with no textual reviews. Doesn't feel like useful data to me.
- RockRobotRock 4y ago
  https://xkcd.com/937/ https://xkcd.com/937/
  - mcv 4y ago
    This got me thinking about survivorship bias in ratings for life-saving devices. If the device fails to save your life, you're not going to be able to give it a poor rating.
- bsder 4y ago
  Anyone who buys a safety system from Amazon is completely out of their gourd.
  - culopatin 4y ago
    What difference does it make? Is an iPhone from Amazon worse than one from the Apple Store?
    - omeid2 4y ago
      Even with something so _standard_ the likelihood of getting a knockoff on Amazon is orders of magnitude higher than Apple Store. Buying a device directly from the vendor comes with a degree of responsibility that you can't afford with buying from 3rd parties (seller), on a 3rd party marketplace (amazon).
    - lozenge 4y ago
      Amazon's never sold fake iPhones as they would be easy to spot, however they have sold, say, dangerous eclipse glasses. Most people do not have the equipment or expertise to test eclipse glasses before relying on it to save their sight.
StianOvrevage 4y ago
I installed the Fell Marine Mob+ myself on my 23 foot day cruiser a year ago and it works very well. The only problem I've had is false positive cut-offs when I'm on the dock untying or when I prepare to dock and I use the arm with the wireless FOB on in the rear compartments of the boat. I could probably fix it by angling the antennae so that it was upright instead of pointing out horizontally behind the base unit, but TBH it's such a infrequent issue and only happens at no/low speed anyway that I haven't bothered. On the plus side at least I know that it does cut the engine and probably would in a real situation as well.
- brk 4y ago
  Go out with a buddy sometime on a day with a light wind. Put your boat at a slow cruise and then jump off (carefully). See if you can actually get back to your boat before you’re exhausted (and need your buddy to pull around and pick you up). In a light wind or current an average boat is still going to be moving faster than most people can swim. The wireless kill switch is good. But pair it with an inflatable PFD.
  - blamazon 4y ago
    It's a tough engineering challenge but it be cool if there was some kind of collapsible 'foot flippers' (is there a more technical term?) one could pull out of like a tube attached to a PFD. I was watching the video of that boat that rolled at the Columbia river outlet in Oregon and the USCG rescue swimmer was astoundingly fast with the fins on.
    - nradov 4y ago
      There are folding fins now available for travelling scuba divers. However, they are still rather bulky and not practical for boaters to carry on a PFD. If the boat is moving faster than a couple knots you won't catch it even with fins. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/exotech/folding-fins-a-true-compact-fins-no-compromises https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/exotech/folding-fins-a-...
  - StianOvrevage 4y ago

andrewem 4y ago

The guy who fell in the water talks about that here: “Specifically, he wants people to know there are wireless killswitches available that can attach to passengers as well as the captain.” https://www.wwaytv3.com/i-was-going-to-die-man-goes-overboard-40-miles-off-topsail-beach-saved-by-father-and-son/ https://www.wwaytv3.com/i-was-going-to-die-man-goes-overboar...

wil421 4y ago

There’s some fishing guys on YouTube I watch and some of them have an app on their phone to shut the motor off. If they fall overboard the motor shuts off when the phone isn’t close enough. Some also wear automatically inflated life jackets but as a kayaker I don’t trust them.

andrewflnr 4y ago
Specifically for kayak-related reasons?
- Kon-Peki 4y ago
  Most likely. They are not supposed to trigger when getting wet, even very wet, but are supposed to trigger when you go into the water. You really shouldn’t wear an auto-inflating PFD in a situation where going into the water isn’t 100% a bad thing. Kayaking seems to be one of those activities where you wouldn’t want it. Even dinghy sailing/racing seems like a poor use case. In case anyone is unfamiliar with them, though, they all have a manual pull handle that is supposed to trigger the CO2 canister, and as a 3rd backup they even have a tube you can pull up to your face and a one-way valve so you can blow them up with your mouth.
malandrew 4y ago
IMHO aUrooj inflated life jackets generally make no sense for kayaking. It’s too easy to end up in the drink casually and it’s like $60+ per re-arming kit. Are those fishing kayaks so stable that they have very little expectation of going overboard comparable to being on a powerboat or sail boat? I use touring and whitewater kayaks myself. I kayak and sail so I have life jackets for both use cases (two type V rescue jackets for kayaking and 4 type V inflatables for sailing to accommodate friends and better the much safer European spinlock deckvests, which are not USCG approved, so I keep USCG approved inflatables on board too)
sitkack 4y ago
> an app on their phone to shut the motor off. The failure risk here is the phone doesn't go with you and it keeps chugging along.

duxup 4y ago

This is one of those things that I always wondered about. The risks are really apparent though for anyone out on a boat and it just doesn't seem to be the standard operating procedure for most folks.

Aeolun 4y ago
This is not something I ever considered until I played Stormworks, and my boat kept running away from me every other hour.

analog31 4y ago

Moreover, the lanyard should include a panic button that sends out a SOS from the boat's radio.