OmniBeacon extends alerting capabilities

Extending the Alert of a Man-Overboard is Crucial

Seconds count and a Man-Overboard (MOB) Alarm will make the difference between a work stop order or a fatality. A MOB alarm goes off within seconds of a man-overboard, allowing the Captain and crew to get an immediate visual of the MOB. Extending Man Overboard alert is crucial. A rescue operation is launched in under a minute. A life is saved! The same goes for a temporary work operation near water where someone inadvertently falls in the water. When the MOB alarm sounds, employees are notified in seconds and able to identify and rescue that person.

Instant Man-Overboard Alarm with Unlimited Range Extension

The ability to relocate and extend the actual alarm is very important. Our ALERT Man-Overboard Alarm System, the quickest responding MOB alerting system on the market, has an 85-decibel internal alarm in the Receiver that is typically installed in the wheelhouse. But the MOB alarm doesn’t have to remain in the wheelhouse. Extending the range of a man-overboard alarm is a key component and a unique feature of our fall in the water alerting products.

Man-Overboard Alarm For Any Location Near Water

In the twenty-plus years Emerald Marine Products has been manufacturing fall overboard alerting and training products, we have seen the usage of our MOB devices go beyond the wheelhouse. Almost any place imaginable where employees are working on or near water, marine terminals, dredging operations, bridge construction, even water treatment plants have understood the need for a quick response to a person in the water. Sometimes the 85-decibel internal alarm on the ALERT Receiver is not enough to make personnel aware of a fall in the water situation. Thankfully, all ALERT Receivers have “dry contacts” on the back of the units which allows for the addition of extended alerting capabilities. With these contacts, you can attach a number of devices that operate by a “push of a button” or “click of a mouse.”

How To Extend a Man-Overboard Alarm System

Over the years, many of our customers have gotten quite creative on how to extend man-overboard alerting. These solutions range from an external strobe or bull horn to communicating with remote data centers via the internet. At marine terminals, the ALERT Receiver is typically installed in an office which is great, but attaching a strobe or bull-horn can instantly alert employees on the dock of a MOB situation. Some companies have very remote locations where only two or three employees are working. These companies have used cell-phone auto-dial devices to call safety response personnel within seconds of a man-overboard alarm. Recently we became aware of one company using the OmniBeacon that functions as a strobe and an auto-dialer unit to extend alerting of a man-overboard.

Emerald Marine Products is proud of our customers who take man-overboard awareness seriously enough to not only install our products. Furthermore, we are inspired by the creativity displayed inventing solutions at remote locations where launching a rescue might be hampered by a lack of personnel or equipment by extending the alert to centers where help can be activated.

Design the Man-Overboard Solution for your Situation

Extending Man Overboard alert is crucial. Emerald Marine Products’ ALERT Man-Overboard Alarm System can improve the safety of your employees regardless of where they are working on or near water. If your company is challenged on how to monitor and be aware of any danger your employees face while working on-site, let Emerald Marine Products help you design a solution that can extend the alerting capabilities of a fall in the water situation. Contact us through this link or call us at 800-426-4201.

Marine Terminals Need Fall Overboard Alerting

Maybe your employees aren’t on boats. Yet they work dangerously close to water. The ALERT Man-Overboard Alarm System protects employees working near the water with alerting devices for fall overboard awareness. If your a dredging, marine construction, or terminal operations, alerting employees within seconds of a fall in the water situation is crucial. Water that could sweep them out of sight or, in cold weather, send them into shock and restrict their muscles within minutes. A video describing how the ALERT System saved a deckhand from a near-fatal barge accident is at youtube video.

Alerting Devices for Fall Overboard Awareness

Used by scores of Marine Terminals across the United States, The ALERT Man-Overboard Alarm System is fast becoming the defacto standard for reliable, affordable, and expandable alerting devices to alert of a fall in the water. Sometimes the “buddy system” of keeping track of a fellow employee is physically impossible to administer. In the current operating conditions imposed by the COVID-19 crisis, employees are also tasked with more social distancing and the wearing of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) that might hamper visual awareness of other employees near their surroundings.

Marine Terminals Pose Specific Issues for Fall in the Water Protection

The ALERT Man-Overboard Alarm System provides the technology to span over 1,000 feet of coverage. Let Emerald Marine Products guide you on what system will work best for your specific locations. Conversly, because some of the locations are remote, expanding the alerting functionality of a fall overboard situation is imperative! The ALERT Man-Overboard Alarm System has a mryiad of ways to expand alerting capabilities of alerting devices for fall overboard awareness. As a reult, our clients use external alarms, strobes, remote autodial, cell phone alerting trees, pre-broadcast to HF radios and even internet enabled alarms. Again, let Emerald Marine Products guide you through expanded alerting functionality.

Looking to Implement Fall in the Water Awareness

It’s easy to quickly implement fall in the water awareness. Here is a link of an article covering the aspects of protecting your employees working near water with awareness, training and retreival. To discuss a solution that works best for your company’s operations and budget contact Emerald Marine Products at 800-426-4201 or use our contact page.

SCF Lewis & Clark Fleeting have excellent MOB procedures and testing in place!

When Deckhands or Shore-Side Workers go Missing

We are not addressing work stoppage, strikes or just plain no-show incidents. We are addressing when a worker who executes their job on or near water suddenly disappears. Potentially into the water!

Any company that has employees working on or near water grapples with the concern of a Fall Overboard or MOB incident. It’s in the back of their safety-conscious mind every day. Does it keep them up at night? Hopefully not. The truth is most companies that work on or near water have a plethora of safety issues to deal with. In Emerald Marine Products’ experience, a MOB is one of those “put it on the back shelf” concerns. Statistically, it’s not a top safety concern but the implications of an MOB are far greater than a fall, collision, or medical issue.

A non-fatal MOB will most certainly cause a work stoppage, a potential medical issue and possibly a lawsuit. A fatal Mob will most certainly cause a work stoppage, an investigation by law enforcement, a potential medical issue and most certainly a lack of confidence from the employees and a lawsuit. The financial cost of a non-fatal or fatal MOB can be drastic. “That’s what we have insurance for” is not a defense for not having awareness of MOB issues and address the concern. Insurance may take care of some financial aspects of an MOB incident, but damage to the employees’ confidence, the company’s reputation and the soul retching guilt of the incident can be caustic to the companies future. On the last point alone, we have heard of a non-fatal MOB cause a suicide because the person in charge of the person who fell in the water (but survived) felt so guilty they didn’t better protect them.

You know MOB awareness, protection and rescue needs to be addressed, but where do you begin? As with any procedural change in an organization, change begins with education. Educate yourself and all stakeholders on what a MOB situation is. How vulnerable are your employees to such an incident? If your employees work on or near water, of course, the potential is there. But is the potential of a MOB increased due to; long work shifts, employees out-of-sight from other employees, weather extremes, inexperience, etc? As the potential grows, the implementation of a MOB plan is essential. What’s next?

You are determined to put an operational procedure in place to train your employees on both the hazards of an MOB and most important a response to a MOB. Emerald Marine Products has been manufacturing MOB alerting products for over twenty years. It is with our partnership with C-Hero, manufacture of MOB retrieval products, that our ability to offer companies a complete solution in awareness and retrieval of MOB incidents is complete. Emerald Marine Products and C-Hero have taken the mystery out of MOB awareness, operational execution and continued compliance.

First, begin with awareness. Outfitting any employee working on or near the water with proper protection such as Personal Floating Device (PFD), head, hand, footgear, VHF radio, personal light beacon, and our ALERT Man-Overboard Transmitter. Train your employees of root causes of potential fall situations (tripping on lines, fatigue, misplace objects). All employees working on or near water should be tested in MOB procedures regularly.

Actual MOB procedures can be easily found and adopted by your company if not already implemented. However, in our research, we have found most implementation is lax and irregular. Demand that all supervisors adhere to strict execution on both the exercise and frequency of the MOB test. Outfitting your company with a life-like victim such as our OSCAR – Water Rescue Training Dummy will provide years of easily maneuvered MOB testing procedures. An MOB drill should not use anything less than a full-grown adult victim in both size and weight. Using any training device not the size and weight of an adult is an affront to both your commitment to properly trained employees and the true readiness in the event an actual MOB occurs.

Realistically, what is the ability of your employees to provide a MOB retrieval in a timely manner? If your operation is shore-side and the water has a fast-moving current, how quickly will the person in the water be out of sight? Out of range of a local retrieval? This is a concern that needs to be addressed quickly. If the retrieval will come from another source, do employees in the rescue process know who to contact? Test it! If a local retrieval is possible (such as the boat the person just fell off of), is the rescuer’s ability to properly navigate the rescue boat and able to get the MOB out of the water in a timely fashion? Again, test it!

C-Hero makes several retrieval products to fit your company’s needs and budget. But in all safety procedures, the budget should not drive the solution. If your operation requires a device to lift a person out of the water, and no device exists on your boat, you need to budget for a lift. If all you need to get the MOB to the area where they can be safely lifted out of the water, then explore what type of retrieval product(s) will work best for the physical abilities of your employee. It is the repeated testing of a MOB drill that you will discover or confirm that your process is effective. If testing is frequent and consistent, you will see the level of confidence grow in your employees. Empowering them to be aware of a fall overboard concern will increase their vigilance of fellow employees’ whereabouts. Increasing the safety net within your company’s safety culture.

What about a safety culture once set and then management changes break down the compliance? C-hero has built a robust training and compliance application that is easy to administer. It allows for a step-by-step approach in MOB retrieval training. Once trained, the employee is video recorded in their participation in the training procedure. The video is then reviewed by management and given an approval rating. Annual compliance of each employee can be easily administered. The process can become the “heavy hand” that further institutes compliance within your company.

If Deckhands and Shore-Side Workers going missing is a concern of yours. If the responsibility of your employee’s well-being is a concern of yours, there are products and plans available to easily implement into your safety culture. Contact Emerald Marine Products to discuss your needs when addressing the issue of your employees working on or near water. Addressing your concerns now; before an unexpected event brings a costly accident to your attention.

Three Missing After Towing Vessels Collide

RC Creppel. File Photo: MarineTraffic.com / Craig Creppel

Please note that the purpose of this article is to educate the maritime industry of our products and the solution they can offer.

As a manufacturer of products specific to fall overboard alerting and retrieval, we monitor the news for fall overboard incidents. Just today we read once again about an incident where a fall overboard product may have helped save lives. Many times, when companies research our product, they are amazed it exists and see it as an affordable solution to head off the tragedy of a fall overboard incident. We don’t want to be the maritime industry’s best-kept secret; we want to be top of mind if protecting your employees from fall overboard situations that may concern you.

It was reported today that three persons are missing after two towing vessels collide on the Mississippi River. G Captain online report stated, “The U.S. Coast Guard says watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector New Orleans received a report at 5:37 a.m. (Sunday, January 26th) that the towing vessel RC Creppel and the towing vessel Cooperative Spirit had collided. Four crew members of the RC Creppel were initially reported missing. One person was recovered from the water by a Good Samaritan. The search for the other three is ongoing.
Local media reported that one person was rescued and taken to the hospital where they are in stable condition. The Cooperative Spirit was reportedly transiting upbound on the river when it entered a barge fleeting area and allied with barges before colliding with the towing vessel RC Creppel, the Coast Guard said in a statement. The cause of the collision is under investigation.”
For the full article, visit gCaptain.

When crew members wear a fall overboard alerting device, such as our ALERT Man-Overboard Alarm Transmitter, the automatic water-activated device begins to transmit within seconds that a fall overboard has occurred to the vessel’s ALERT Receiver installed on the boat they just fell off of.
Our products are not to be confused with Emergency Positioning Indicator Radio Beacon (EPIRBs) which are ideal when a person needs to abandon ship. ALERT2 and ALERT418 products work when the abandon ship was totally involuntary, such as a fall overboard induced from a myriad of reasons, a collision from another vessel is one of them.
In the case of the event outlined above the fall overboard alerting would have been just one of many calamities occurring at once. However, ALERT products continue to transmit up to 40 hours. The 418MHz frequency can be heard with a portable direction finder, providing an opportunity to find the FOB before the rescue turns into a recovery.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and survivors and their families of this latest maritime tragedy. Emerald Marine Products is dedicated to alerting, training and recovery of fall overboard situations. We hope that these types of tragedies can be averted in the future

United States Coast Guard Issues Safety Alert Reassessing Man-Overboard Risks

On April 24th, The United States Coast Guard released a Safety Alert reassessing man-overboard risks in response to a fatality that occurred while a personnel exchange was taking place at sea. You can read the full Safety Alert here In the Alert it was stated, “The ship’s Boatswain and Ordinary Seaman (OS) were manning the port side shell access port and pilot embarkation space behind a hydraulically operated bi-fold hatch door and were preparing for the pilot’s arrival. The port was located forward of the house and approximately 13-feet above the waterline. The Boatswain and OS were unable to monitor the seas from their position behind the hatch door. As the two crew members were in the process of opening the door, seas unexpectedly struck and violently forced it open, flooding the space. The OS was not wearing a harness or safety line nor a personal flotation device; he was subsequently swept out to sea. The Boatswain was forced onto the deck whereby the pilot ladder fell on him, fracturing his leg. The side shell door also sustained structural damage during the incident. Coast Guard Sector New York launched an extensive search and rescue mission that was terminated with no success after 28 hours. The OS was lost and presumed dead.”

The Safety Alert goes on to state, “This casualty reiterates the dangers of personnel exchanges at sea, especially in heavy weather conditions”. Emerald Marine Products agrees that casualty can occur in heavy weather conditions but we have historically seen casualties and near fatalities relating to man-overboard incidents occurring even in calm weather conditions. As reported in the past, man-overboard incidents are caused from many conditions, such as tripping on misplaced objects, dehydration, exhaustion, poor training. Regardless of weather, actions should be taken by companies to assure their employees are protected.

The Safety Alert goes on to state; “The Coast Guard strongly recommends owners and operators of deep draft vessels:

Review vessel Safety Management Systems, procedural manuals and guidance that relate to pilot transfers and update as appropriate, considering risks revealed by this casualty;
• Reinforce the importance for crew members to wear personal protection devices and safety lines when working over the side of a vessel, when exposed to the elements or when there is an absence of a barrier that prevents an accidental water entry;
• Ensure officers and crew identify potential hazards and conduct a risk assessment, to include consideration of weather conditions, prior to opening the side shell port hatches;
• Ensure crew communications between Navigation Watch Officers and crew are clear and provide suitable supervision of activities, considering sea state and other changing conditions.”

Emerald Marine Products has heard that more Form CG-835V have been issued to companies that don’t fully comply with Management Safety Systems (SMS) or Towing Safety Management Systems (TSMS). In light of this latest Safety Alert, we are sure the US Coast Guard will be actively looking at many companies compliance with SMS or TSMS.

When companies review their SMS or TSMS policies they should seriously look at the ALERT Man-Overboard Alarm System. In the case of the tragedy outlined earlier, the use of the ALERT system would have helped to track the seaman who was swept out to sea. The ALERT Man-Overboard System is recognized as the leading and fastest indicator of a man-overboard situation. Our automatic water activated transmitters report to the wheelhouse or other monitoring station within seconds of a MOB. A visual of a person in the water will assure a quick response and will be integral in the execution of your MOB recovery outlined in your SMS or TSMS. Why not invest in an alerting system that compliments your mandated MOB procedures? The investment is a fraction of your cost to implement a SMS or TSMS and will pay dividends by providing your employees with the confidence that in the event of a man-overboard incident, the crew will be notified within seconds, and tracking in the event that the MOB is lost will help in their quick recovery.

For more information about our products and how we help companies comply with their Safety Management System or Towing Safety Management System procedures, contact Emerald Marine Products via this contact link or call, 800-426-4201.

OSCAR – Water Rescue Training Dummy in action

Recently Kenny Brown, Founder of Maritime Throwdown used OSCAR – Water Rescue Training Dummy to show the differences between a retrieval of a Man-Overboard (MOB) with and without proper retrieval equipment. Thank you Kenny for a well produced video. Every maritime company doing MOB drills should look at OSCAR – Water Rescue Training Dummy as a cost-effective and efficient training dummy. Your employees will appreciate both your concern for their lives and their backs as they carry our lightweight (when empty) and full weight (when filled with water) dummy to provide realistic MOB retrieval exercises.

Fall Overboard Tragedy Can be Prevented

ALERT Man-Overboard Alarm System protects all people on or near water.

As a manufacturer of products specific to fall overboard alerting and retrieval, we monitor the news for fall overboard incidents. Just today we read about two fatalities that occurred, each when a worker fell into the water and no one was aware of the issue until it became tragic. The Maritime Executive Online reported, “In the early hours of Saturday morning, a deckhand disappeared from a moored towboat on the Mississippi River at St. Joseph, Louisiana. The Coast Guard, the Mississippi Department of Wildlife and the local sheriff’s department conducted a search of the river all day Saturday – including dragging the river and scanning with sonar – but without success. The search resumed Sunday morning.” In the same online issue of The Maritime Executive Online reported , “At about 1700 hours Sunday, Sector Honolulu received a distress call from the master of the fishing vessel Kawaiola, who reported that one of their crewmembers had gone overboard. The missing fisherman was last seen on the deck of the vessel at 1430 hours, and the crew did not realize that he was no longer aboard until several hours had passed.”

Two different locations, two different industries, two different work environments but both ended in the same outcome – a person fell into the water and no one was aware of this fall-overboard until minutes, even hours passed before this person was missed. We don’t know the details of these tragedies but we do know the use of an ALERT Man-Overboard transmitter on that worker could have averted the tragedy by altering the crew and vessel of a man-overboard (MOB).

Even if the person is wearing a personal flotation device (PFD), which definitely can give the person a greater opportunity for survival, there is still a need to alert the vessel that the person fell from, as this is the greatest chance of survival. The ALERT Transmitter immediately notifies the boat that a MOB has occurred, quickly calling into action all eyes and able bodies to rescue the man-overboard in minutes.

Emerald Marine Products is moved by these tragedies to reach out to the fishing community and to other small business that rely on the health and safety of their workers to continue to prosper in a very competitive and physically challenging work environment. We ask these enterprises to seriously consider investing in wearing and using PFD’s. We promise to do all we can to make our ALERT product available to you at a discount so finances are not the issue in preventing fishermen or small businesses from using a fall overboard alarm system. Because our ALERT Man-Overboard Alarm System is automatic and water activated, when the person falls overboard, conscious or not, PFD wearer or not, the device when it gets wet will begin to transmit to the ALERT Receiver and within seconds the alarm is alerting all those in the area of a fall overboard situation.

We encourage solo fishermen, small fishing companies, non-profits catering to the commercial fishing industry, and other small businesses with employees working on or near water to contact us and see if we can help protect their fleets, We’d love to see these all too familiar headline’s about “Disappearing Deckhand” and “Search for Missing Fisherman” to have a better end to the story. A headline that reads, “Fisherman Falls Overboard and is Rescued by Crew”. Life saved, a story with a much better ending than the one’s we read all too often.

Emerald Marine Products included in the Marine News 100 Recognition

Marine News Issue of the MN100

Emerald Marine Products is pleased to announce that we were selected to be part of the 2018 Marine News MN100. MN100 is Marine News magazine (www.marinelink.com) yearly review of the best companies serving the workboat, brown water, inland and coastal markets. Emerald Marine Products was awarded inclusion in the Equipment/OEM Division for our ALERT418 Man-Overboard Alarm System product. Also cited in the article is our support of safety for the maritime industry for over twenty years with our other products, the ALERT2 Man-Overboad Alarm System and our OSCAR – Water Rescue Training Dummy. We appreciate the recognition and honor of providing safety products to the maritime and other industries working on or near water. For an image of the article, click here.

Fall Overboard Situations Presentation

Now available is a presentation given to the Signal Mutual Safety Meeting about Fall Overboard Situations, their cause, and solutions for fall overboard alerting and retrieval.

ALERT418 Man-Overboard Alarm System Introduction Video Now Available

Curious about our two ALERT Man-Overboard Alarm Systems? This new video provides information about the ALERT2 and ALERT418 systems. Their similarities and the improvements made with the new ALERT418 system.