Scott - dead right What the hell is somebody doing in Indonesia thinking they are on the ICW? This is Indonesia, a lovely country but purely 3rd world. The 3rd most populace country in the World, with an infrastructure in some places resembling the western world 200 years ago (although rapidly changing - fortunately) A very close friend is in charge of teaching anti terrorism to the country and has set up an academy to bring this country up to world speed, and he and his wife were shot at by robbers just two weeks ago in their car. Lesson. The wonders of modern communications are great in most of the world. In other parts you need back-up e.g. sat phone, etc. A pirated boat observed members of the Indonesian navy in the background as a part of the ruse. Has anybody read Jimmy Cornell for reference to this subject? I am sick of the press distorting the known dangers, and I'm sick of dreamers not doing their bloody homework. Again fools will always hurt the opportunities for people to experience the great things to do in life. If he was my son I would kick him up the ass. I'm surprised he even had an EPIRB let alone how to activate it. I'm in Indonesia in 2009. I study every day what's ahead of me and am very cautious. Peter Scott thinks: Reading the postings, I'm surprised so many people think the system didn't work as advertised. All the EPIRB service does is exactly what it did in this case, notify the emergency contact of record and contact the nearest official office to take ownership of SAR activities. What more do people expect? An EPIRB is a key link to establish SAR, but that's about all it is. A satphone, HF radio or even VHF radio are all critical resources to have in addition to the EPIRB. As far as I could tell reading the postings, everything worked as advertised, again, what more do people expect? This is Indonesia after all. It's hard to determine exactly what the officials did in the search, based on reading the postings. As far as I'm concerned the sailboat guy involved should have done more to communicate back home, and to officials when he reached land after setting his EPIRB off. What was HE thinking? Scott Bulger, Alanui, N40II, Seattle WA ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Passagemaking-Under-Power Mailing List End of Passagemaking-Under-Power Digest, Vol 37, Issue 4 ********************************************************