WWW.PMYMAG.COM JUNE 2017 / POWER & MOTORYACHT 47
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Does it make sense to use smartphones and tablets for a man overboard alarm and
recovery system? I can testify that the fi rst reaction of Sail magazine’s Pittman Innova-
tion Award judges was skepticism. Nonetheless we found PanPan’s CrewWatcher (crew
watcher.com) so well thought out and potentially so useful that we gave it an award in
the safety category, and then an independent second set of judges picked it for the Over-
all Winner. And truth be told, the fi nished CrewWatcher personal beacons (and, while
we’re at it, apps) don’t actually exist yet!
“Everyone’s okay”—or to be more specifi c, “everyone is still on the boat”—is one hell
of a nice thing to know when you’re under way, especially in the dark or when it’s rough,
or both. In many situations if you don’t learn that a person has gone overboard quite
quickly, he or she is going to die, possibly not quickly. I worry about this, even though
I’ve yet to experience either side of a person overboard situation. So I not only appreciate
the evolution of personal MOB beacons, I particularly like the type that can regularly
reassure me that they’re working.
Th e PanPan CrewWatcher is just such an active MOB system, also termed “alarm on
failure” when I tested Raymarine’s LifeTag a decade ago. If set to Watch mode, the or-
ange CrewWatcher beacons communicate every second over Bluetooth 4 with which-
ever Apple iOS or Android device you’re using the CrewWatcher app on. In fact, the
Bluetooth signal strength icons animate reassuringly, and the beacon icons even wiggle
when the actual beacons pass within a few feet of the phone or tablet. While you cer-
tainly don’t have to be looking at the app to know when a beacon’s connection fails,ADVANCES IN MOB AND SMARTPHONE TECHNOLOGY PUT
LIFE-SAVING FUNCTIONALITY AT YOUR FINGERTIPS.
BY BEN ELLISON&