We all know there are Federal and State minimum requirements for safety equipment that must be kept on board your boat or PWC. But being legal doesn't always mean having everything you may need. Required items are easy enough to determine. Just ask us for a free copy of the ODNR and/or Federal regulation booklets we keep on hand for our customers. But there is more to it than that.

VHF (ship-to-shore) radios are not required by law, but you wouldn't catch me on Lake Erie or any large body of water without one. Not knowing the phone numbers for local Marine Patrols, the ODNR or Coast Guard can cause delays that could be disastrous. Cell phones may or may not get a signal, and even if they do, if you don't know your exact location, your position can be determined from a VHF transmission.

Probably the most common things people think of for safety equipment are items like fire extinguishers and flares. There are several different styles of flares, each serving a very useful purpose. Just because the minimum requirement is (3) doesn't mean that's all you should have, especially on large bodies of water.

If you've lost electrical power or your VHF isn't working, you'll be glad you have flares. Hand-helds are less expensive than 12-gauge guns. But if you're not close enough to another vessel or to land, hand-helds won't help you because no one will see them. So you decide to spend a little more and carry 12-gauge meteors instead... Now you can attract attention farther away, but once a prospective rescue vessel locates the general area where help is needed, they still need to know the flare's point of origin. Without the hand-held flares, the rescuers don't know your boat's specific location. The 12-gauge meteors will alert someone to the general direction of the flares, and the hand-helds will help them pinpoint where the 12-gauge flares originated. Thus, the terms "alert," "locate," and "alert/locate kit" on Orion flare packages.