I was hesitant to spend a few hundred dollars on a EPIRB thinking it would just be hanging on the wall, probably never be used collecting dust, but my wife insisted that if I wanted to go sailing, I had to have one. So I bought the GlobalFix V4 EPIRB, mounted it on the wall in my boat, and forgot about it.

On August 5th, 2022, 60 miles due east of Cape Canaveral, Florida in the Atlantic, I had just finished my dinner and was laying down staring at the stars when I noticed an odd sloshing sound from inside. When I got up to look and it was knee-deep in sea water down below!

Running down, I grabbed my emergency bail bag and the ACR EPIRB from the wall and threw them into the Inflatable dinghy.  I lowered the dinghy, jumped in and untied from my sailboat and pushed away.  After the boat’s last mast antenna submerged I gathered my thoughts of what just happened.  

I attached the beacon to my wrist with the included Velcro and tied the line to the dingy and pressed the emergency button. It started blinking Red and a few seconds later the green LED flashed indicating, to me, the cavalry was on the way. And boy was it ever!

A couple of hours later a Coast Guard chopper appeared over the horizon and hovered over me. As we communicated via VHF walkie talkie, he offered to lift me only right then, or wait for the Coast Guard Cutter that was on the way full steam to get me and my dinghy. I opted to wait and the chopper hovered over me until the Cutter crew plucked me from the sea.  

An hour later, I was eating a home-made breakfast aboard the cutter headed home!   

After we got ashore and my brother and son picked me up the Coast Guard Station, and they told me that practically the whole family was woken up by the Coast Guard telling them what happened and that they were on the way.
Amazing technology! Don’t skimp on the emergency beacon! And as a tip, also have a water-proof VHF radio.