Comparison of Emergency Flares

Jeremy Bell and Janet Crane

Before we left the San Francisco bay area last year to cruise the Great Circle Route on the east coast, we had the opportunity to attend a 'Flares Shoot Off’ session that was sponsored by the Cal Sailing Club in Berkeley, California. If you ever get the opportunity to attend to one of these, you should definitely go.

It was very informative in that you got the opportunity to learn about the different types of flares that are available, as well as learning how to safely set them off.  Everyone who attended had the chance to actually set off one or more flares.  While Svensen's Chandlery of Alameda as well as the Demera Group donated in-date flares for the event, attendees were encouraged to bring their expired flares in order to set them off and/or safely dispose of them.  As anyone knows who’s tried to dispose of old flares, it’s not that easy.  They are considered 'hazardous waste' and therefore you are not allowed to just throw them out in the trash. 

About 50 people attended the event together with lots and lots of expired flares. Most folks brought flares that expired in the early 90's. Only aerial and hand-held flares were permitted.  Smoke flares were not allowed due to the proximity of the shoot off to a busy highway. 

Bob Clark, an Orion flares representative was also on hand during the event to provide details and instruction on the proper, safe usage of the various types of flares that were demonstrated and ignited by participants.

We dug-out our 'oldest-of-the-old' flares, mostly SOLAS parachutes and hand-held flares with expiry dates ranging from the mid 1980s into the early 1990s.  Like pretty much everyone else there with old flares, we had stored them inside our boat in waterproof bags.

Besides having the opportunity to actually shoot off the flares, the most interesting part of the day was seeing the failure rates of the old flares.  Granted, this was not a full blown study of all flare types but there were definite patterns based on the type of flare and brand for what worked well and what didn’t.  From the worst to the best, these were our observations and conclusions based on what we saw that day.

Skyblazer hand-held pencil flares:
To say that we were disappointed in the performance of these flares would be an understatement. Of the 6 we brought, 5 did absolutely nothing. The one that did manage to shoot off did not ignite.  Granted ours had expired, but there were some other folks there with current versions and they had similar results. I've heard these have really high failure rates, but I honesty didn’t expect it to be that bad.

12 Gauge Flare Guns:
We didn't bring any of these, but lots of other folks did. Almost all fired (maybe 90%), but they went maybe 100ft and were back down into the water within the blink of an eye. You'd have to be looking in the area of the flare at the time it was shot up in order to see it – not very impressive. I've heard that if you use this type of flare, you need to be prepared to shoot off at least 3 of them in succession about 10-15 seconds apart.  The reason is that they are up for such a short period of time, that the casual observer may doubt that they actually saw the flare first flare at all.  

25mm Flare Guns:
There are two types of 25mm flares, the regular type that go up and then come right down similar to the 12 gauge flares as well as parachute flares. The 'up and down' flares seemed to have a failure rate of about 20% - slightly higher than the 12 gauge.  The ones that went off, however, seemed to go higher and burn brighter than the 12 gauge flares.  The 25mm parachute flares were markedly better. They all fired, went much higher and came down slowly – providing prolonged visibility.

SOLAS Parachute Rocket Flares:
Easily the best flares by far were the self contained SOLAS parachute flares. These flares come in a tube where you pull out a pin and then push a tab up to set them off. We brought along 8 of these and they all shot off. The only failures we had were that one didn't ignite after it was shot off and one didn't deploy the parachute. They were, however, pretty old – probably 15 years past their expiry dates. The ones that did deploy were really bright and went much higher than anything else that was shot off (including the 25mm parachute flares).  Since they have a parachute, they came down slowly – again providing prolonged visibility.  Probably the best part of the flares was the fact that, unlike flares that require a gun to shoot off, they did not kick back at all when they were deployed.  Since they are self contained, they are also easier and quicker to deploy than those requiring a gun. All of ours were Pains Wessex, and we noticed that they seemed to go higher and burn brighter than some of the others brands that were there.

Hand-held flares:
Something we didn’t expect to see was the huge failure rate for the large hand-held SOLAS flares.  We were only able to get 3 of the 7 we brought to ignite.  They also seemed a bit risky to use. One of them started to shoot flames from the back end as it was burning down.  Fortunately our friend Jim, who was holding it, quickly dropped it into a very large puddle.  Even the ones that did work correctly were dropping hot bits of stuff off as they burned down. You'd definitely want to wear gloves when you light them and make sure you are holding them downwind and way out over the water.  I could just imagine burning a hole in a life raft while holding one of these things. We noticed that the flares where you pull a string on the bottom had a much higher success rate of going off than the ones where you twist the bottom and give it a hard belt with the palm of your hand. We didn’t get any of ours that were that type to ignite at all.  Some other folks also brought some, and they only got one to ignite. Of all of the hand-held flares that did ignite, the Pains Wessex were by far the brightest and burned the longest.

Conclusion:
Based on our observations, we plan to continue to buy and carry the self-contained Pains Wessex parachute flares. Even though they are pretty expensive, they seemed to be the easiest and safest to use and provided the best visibility. We no longer carry any of the Skyblazer flares and we’ve relegated our remaining 12 gauge flares to the dingy.

We especially want to thank Jamuel P. Starkey Vice Commodore of Cal Sailing Club for sponsoring this event.  We know from talking to him that it was not an easy event to get scheduled, as it required permits from the city as well as approval from the Coast Guard. It was, however, one of the most interesting and valuable events that we have attended in a long time.