Sirius Signal C-1003 Distress Light - A newly improved flare replacement?
"The sea, the great unifier, is man's only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat." - Jacques Yves Cousteau Jacques may be right about all of us being in the same boat, but that no longer means we all carry the same kind of emergency distress signaling gear. As I wrote a few years ago when Sirius Signal released their original A-1001 LED SOS distress light, conventional pyrotechnic flares have some serious competition for keeping boaters safe and complying with U.S. Coast Guard regulations. But before we dive into the details, you might be wondering just what is an LED SOS distress light and which USCG regs are relevant. An LED SOS distress light, often referred to as an electronic Visual Distress Signal Device (eVDSD) in the industry, is simply a battery operated light that flashes SOS in Morse code. The U.S. Code of Federal Regulations Part 175.130 states that an electric distress light meeting the st