Well, I might not be the least qualified on the subject of the technical workings of EPIRBs, but I'd probably be on a short list. I think what's really needed, as I understand it.... A lot of the vessels, certainly the larger ones, the ones you just made reference to, are out for several days at a time. When I say they're larger, these would be, say, vessels that are 45 feet to 65 feet in length, carrying crews of half a dozen or so, roughly speaking. Those vessels, by and large, are equipped with the so-called black box, so lack...better coordination is needed between the information in the black box and the EPIRBs.
Clearly, the Melina and Keith II was one case--and I'd like to acknowledge the captain, Shawn Ralph, who is present here today-- where, with a better, sharper response and better coordination between agencies, there would have been a strong likelihood of saving lives there. There's nothing any of us can do to change that, but I think we all have a responsibility to ask what it is we can learn from what went astray there. Clearly, integrating the information contained in the black box with the alarms that go up...because I understand that there is a tendency for these EPIRBs--this was the rationale given--to give false alarms or false signals from time to time. But clearly, coordination is needed in that regard.
I don't know what else you can say about the separate times for daytime and nighttime. It really makes no sense whatsoever in relation to the activity, to the work schedules and so on that people have. We have 65-foot vessels going out in what is a nasty climate around here at the best of times. It appears, with climate change, to be getting worse. There's more extreme weather. There's more wind and so on.
These are not very big vessels, really, even the 65-footers, to be out in those conditions. As a matter of routine, they fish or are at sea 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That's not every vessel. They come to shore at three- or four- or five-day intervals on an individual basis, but there are almost always--other than in severe weather--a whole lot of them at sea at any one time. And they're just as likely, or if not more so, to have a mishap at night or on a Saturday or a Sunday as they are on a Wednesday at four o'clock in the afternoon.
I can't think of any emergency service in the country that's run on that kind of a basis and I can't possibly think of what would be the logic behind having it that way. It really makes no sense to me whatsoever. While there was once a time when our fishing activity was day trips, in and out the same day, and there were a lot of boats--the majority of our boats still operate that way--a lot of the most recent tragedies have involved 45- to 65-foot vessels that are out on three-, four-, and five-day trips and longer.