[HN Gopher] Ghost boat with GPS leads father-son duo to man over...
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Ghost boat with GPS leads father-son duo to man overboard
Author : hnburnsy
Score : 326 points
Date : 2023-02-05 15:47 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.garmin.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.garmin.com)
| djmips wrote:
| Good job tricking me into reading a Readers Digest -Drama in real
| life / Garmin advertisement...
| gscott wrote:
| The moral of the story is to pee in a cup
| johtso wrote:
| getting used to peeing in bottles might just save your life
| one day
| cm2187 wrote:
| Or at least to stop the engine while you pee
| benatkin wrote:
| Or at least put your life jacket and lanyard back on.
| killjoywashere wrote:
| The young rescuer, Jack, is a Math major at the Naval Academy!
| ruph123 wrote:
| I am no boat person at all but would it not make sense to have
| keys that only allow you to drive the boat if you are close by
| like in modern cars? And when you fall off, it just stops a few
| meters away from you. I know these small boats are probably more
| simple and the transponders would need to be water proof, etc.
| but the benefit could be huge.
| googlryas wrote:
| They have wireless lanyards to do just that. But, currents and
| wind pressure are just as likely to push the boat away from you
| faster than you can swim if you're overboard.
| Gracana wrote:
| Could be a good idea for small boats in some cases. Jet skis do
| tend to have kill switch tethers.
| bjyule wrote:
| Boats small enough to be operated by a single person are
| required by law (I believe) to be fitted with a kill switch
| that is supposed to be clipped onto the operator. In the event
| they go overboard, the engine shuts off.
|
| Of course in practice almost nobody actually uses these.
| pancrufty wrote:
| > Of course in practice almost nobody actually uses these.
|
| The damn government can't tell me what to do.
|
| Sigh, I see plenty of people driving with the seatbelt behind
| them, which means they make the choice to ignore the advice.
| Imagine _having to take action_ without being constantly told
| to.
|
| As other comments have mentioned, we're dumb.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Some deliberately do it out of principle, despite knowing
| it's dumb. I have a family member who refuses to wear his
| seat belt simply _because the government shouldn 't tell
| him what to do_. He knows it's safer, and knows that he'll
| get a ticket if he's pulled over, but won't do it, purely
| out of this weird, dogmatic anti-authority.
|
| In the field of aviation, they study aeronautical decision
| making (ADM), and hazardous attitudes that prevent good
| decision making. The FAA identified the so-called 5
| Hazardous Attitudes[1], and number one on the list is
| "Anti-authority". I wouldn't be surprised if this attitude
| is causal of accidents and negligence in other activities
| like boating and driving.
|
| 1: https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-
| news/1999/september/...
| userbinator wrote:
| Given how the country was essentially founded by "anti-
| authority" and still somewhat values freedom highly, it's
| not so surprising. IMHO it's not a bad thing as long as
| it's done in moderation.
| [deleted]
| lstodd wrote:
| That's basically useless if there's any significant wind.
|
| You won't be able to catch up to a drifting boat and board it
| (the latter is quite a challenge in itself).
|
| edit: just not go alone.
| aerodog wrote:
| "To me, that's divine intervention," Andrew said.
|
| https://quran.com/17/67
|
| "When you are touched with hardship at sea, you [?]totally[?]
| forget all [?]the gods[?] you [?]normally[?] invoke, except Him.
| But when He delivers you [?]safely[?] to shore, you turn away.
| Humankind is ever ungrateful."
| interfixus wrote:
| If [?]He[?] will consider not letting all the grim stuff happen
| in the first place, I will get cracking on my gratitude
| project.
| jollofricepeas wrote:
| This is such a great quote to describe the human condition.
|
| Tarantino should have used this for Pulp Fiction instead of
| Ezekiel 25:17. It would have said so much more about the
| character of Jules.
| andylynch wrote:
| This is a great story and endorsement of both Garmins's gear and
| the people involved. The related article referenced at the end is
| worthwhile too, not least for their theory about how the board
| turned, a lot of things went right that day.
| hansthehorse wrote:
| I remember reading that 70% of the male bodies the coast guard
| recovers have their zipper down. I frequently fish offshore alone
| here in SE Florida and when I have to go I pee in an aft corner
| and wash it down with the raw water hose.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| doesn't Home Depot or west marine sell a 5 gallon bucket sized
| toilet? That might keep your boat cleaner especially if you get
| hit by a rouge wave like right before you can rinse.
| eschneider wrote:
| Buckets are a thing.
| glitcher wrote:
| In my experience female passengers especially appreciate a
| bucket with a privacy towel.
| [deleted]
| blamazon wrote:
| If you think about it, a boat is basically a bucket.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Even Noah's ark was a waterproof round wicker basket
| (coracle). Although good point, I never thought about what
| they did with all the animal waste.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| An imaginary waterproof round wicker basket, therefore
| quite light and permeable.
| blamazon wrote:
| In modern times, livestock is regularly shipped en masse
| from places with surplus arable land, like Australia, to
| places with a dearth of arable land, like Saudi Arabia,
| although I don't know what happens to the animal waste.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_export
|
| Interesting tangent from reading that page, the 'Seagoing
| Cowboys':
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagoing_cowboys
| Symbiote wrote:
| I think the animal waste is washed into the sea.
| Presumably there are sumps on the deck and someone hoses
| the deck (and animals!) with seawater.
|
| > Using the table below, and assuming one million head of
| cattle a year, 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of excrement per
| head per day, an average voyage time of 10 days and
| vessel loading and unloading times of five days,
| something in the order of 300,000 tons of excrement is
| pumped into the sea during these voyages each year. A
| similar calculation for sheep, voyaging more typically
| for 20 days, would add a further 85,000 tons.
|
| > The excrement has a high water content and is
| considered benign. It is treated like sewage under Marpol
| Annex IV and doesn't need to be treated before dumping
| far from shore.
|
| https://maritime-executive.com/features/live-export-
| followin...
| pancrufty wrote:
| Are you saying I should pee into the boat?
| Laaas wrote:
| A bucket can also be a boat.
| kzrdude wrote:
| It sounds like an offhand factoid (i.e a myth), just such a
| typical thing that happily spreads.
| chad_strategic wrote:
| Say what you will...
|
| Since I knew it was coming from garmin, I knew the mess I was
| getting in.
|
| Regardless of the mindless hype, the story is compelling as a
| short story.
|
| Everyone once in a while it's nice to read a mindless self
| promotional piece in which humanity is on display. Sure beats a
| personal insurance plan from some science denier quarterback?
| netsharc wrote:
| I didn't notice the domain, it only got me when I got to the
| end of the sentence:
|
| > The boat had a Garmin GPS marine system, and while Andrew
| said he hadn't been familiar with Garmin units prior to that,
| it was easy to use, allowing him to figure it out quickly.
| raldi wrote:
| Imagine being stuck overboard like this and then, after two and a
| half hours, seeing _your own boat coming back to pick you up._
| pksebben wrote:
| ... or finish you off. It's become sentient! _swims away
| furiously_
| qup wrote:
| Since I know how it left me, this would have me feeling a bit
| uneasy.
| zaroth wrote:
| My first thought is a great safety feature would be a remote
| engine cutoff you could wear when you are single-handed.
| Something like what jet skis have but maybe Bluetooth?
| (downthread: wireless lanyard)
|
| Must have been absolutely terrifying watching the boat motor
| away.
|
| What a way to go, taking a piss off the side. I do it all the
| time, but not 40 miles off shore!
|
| If I'm sailing that far offshore the rule is you can't leave the
| cockpit without a lifeline, if it's night and in daytime if
| someone else isn't above deck watching you.
| newsclues wrote:
| I've been sailing on a lake in a dinghy and a wind shift caused
| the boom to knock me out of the boat, it was a terrible
| feeling.
|
| Lots of boats you have a safety line to keep you attached, but
| the problem is that people tend not to use them.
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| So what did you do? Evidently you didn't drown.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| They were sailing so the dinghy presumably didn't promptly
| drive away like in this story.
| malandrew wrote:
| Most sailing dinghys should have weather helm and will turn
| up into the wind, causing the boat to end up in irons
| (mainsail luffing and depowered)
| malandrew wrote:
| I know with sailing you want your boat to have weather helm so
| it turns up into the wind and eventually ends up in irons, but
| if you have autopilot engaged, you can't forget that. Do you
| know if any of the newer autopilot systems will head up into
| the wind if they lose contact with the remote that singlehanded
| sailors will attach to their vest?
|
| I've seen lots of videos of singlehanded sailors where they
| aren't wearing tethers in nicer weather.
| zaroth wrote:
| My ancient autopilot certainly doesn't support it. Nor the
| engine panel.
|
| I've never worn a tether except at night in "blue water".
| It's a bit of a stupid risk, but it's absolutely true the
| most likely moment to go over is when standing right up on
| the edge so you don't hit the boat when you relieve yourself!
|
| In hindsight you're definitely gonna be wishing you just got
| a little piss on the hull.
| jzwinck wrote:
| The main reason you want your boat to have a bit of
| weatherhelm is because it makes the boat go faster upwind.
| And just because you have slight weatherhelm at optimal
| upwind trim does not mean the boat will fall into irons if
| the helmsman goes away.
|
| There are devices to shut off the autopilot for a MOB alarm,
| but that won't stop the boat. And even if they did put the
| boat head to wind or heave to, you can't swim fast enough to
| catch even a drifting sailboat because it has so much more
| windage than you.
| StianOvrevage wrote:
| I have this https://www.amazon.com/FELL-Marine-Wireless-Switch-
| Basepack/... on my 23 foot day cruiser and I'm very happy with
| it.
|
| Sometimes cuts when I'm on the dock untying etc but could
| probably be improved by adjusting the antennae orientation.
| zaroth wrote:
| Cutting off your control authority at the worst possible time
| would definitely be the risk trade-off!
| StianOvrevage wrote:
| I agree that in general that would be something to avoid.
| But in my case the probability * consequence math for the
| usual scenarios is still fairly low.
|
| When untying it only cuts once in a while when doing the
| bow lines and I'm still attached at the stern, so no risk
| there.
|
| When preparing to dock it's only if I need to find and
| prepare extra rope from some of the most aft compartments,
| which I do well ahead of when I need them and not during
| "critical phases of operation".
|
| If I expect to be running around a lot during docking I
| take the FOB off and place it on the dashboard. I don't
| leave the helm unless the gear is in neutral, and if I fall
| in the water I'm usually within 20 meters of land which I'm
| fairly certain I'd be able to reach :)
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> Sascha had gone to the side to relieve himself and simply fell
| overboard. He'd reached for the railing to grab it on the way
| down, but he missed. And that was it -- his boat sped away
| without him, nearly 40 miles away from shore.
|
| There is an old story told about how most drowning victims are
| found with their fly open... drunk people peeing into the water
| slip and fall into that water. I don't know anything about this
| particular incident, but peeing off a dock or over the edge of a
| boat is always dangerous. You are doing something very routine at
| the point where land meets water. Even without alcohol/drugs,
| overconfidence with a routine task quickly leads to big mistakes.
| (I saw similar incidents with people who decided pee over the
| edge of cliffs. Don't do that.)
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Also true of the tourist corpses fished out of the icy canals
| of Amsterdam in winter.
| [deleted]
| mozman wrote:
| ... where should you pee?
| blamazon wrote:
| If you're alone and can't stop and don't have anything the
| other commenters mentioned and your boat is fiberglass and in
| good condition? Just pee inboard on the deck in a place with
| good drainage and wash it off. Can't be much worse than the
| droppings that birds provide.
|
| But, personally in general I like the humble pee bottle. At
| Walmart in the RV section they have the blue chemicals used
| in portable toilets and plane lavatories and the like. You
| can get it in a little tide pod format. Cuts the smell and
| keeps things sterile. Drop that into any container
| (preferably non-translucent and 2+ liters) add a little water
| and you've got your own miniature portable toilet.
|
| You can also buy a real portable toilet, they are quite nice
| these days, but can be bulky. The keyword to find them is
| "cartridge toilet" because typically the waste volume is a
| container that is detached and carried to the dump point. I
| once hiked 3 miles holding one of these portable toilets just
| so I could take a dramatically scenic (and civilized) poop
| and it was absolutely worth it.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| I think a bucket is more traditional...
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Or at least pee from behind a railing of some sort so that
| when you slip you won't fall outside the boat.
| yafbum wrote:
| Bucket
|
| Gatorade bottle (the dude even had his own supply according
| to TFA)
|
| Worst case, on deck near the drain holes, then wash it off
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Cut a piece of plastic bottle to make a portable urinal
| oh_my_goodness wrote:
| Who is downvoting this? This is very literally the key life-
| and-death question.
|
| Too bad if there's some humor in it. You have to live with
| that sometimes.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _where should you pee?_
|
| The head. If there isn't one, give a buddy a heads up.
| jacurtis wrote:
| In this case there was no buddy either.
|
| Really if you ever need to go the edge of the boat you
| should be tied in. This is especially true with sailboats
| since you often work at the edge of the boat doing things
| like pulling lines or other actions where you can easily
| lose balance or the boat can quickly shift.
|
| If you are sailing in open water like this, miles from
| shore, especially solo, you should be tying yourself
| whenever you go to the edge of the boat. This is standard
| equipment on most boats, a full-body harness (often
| intergrated with an CO2 inflated life vest and water
| activated beacon). There is a big industrial caribiner
| style clip you clip onto the railing or similar with so
| that if you fall overboard you can pull yourself back. The
| rig is similar to what you would wear while roofing a
| house.
|
| This applies to all offshore boating, but if you are ever
| boating solo, even more precaution should be taken to do
| this.
| wyldfire wrote:
| Deactivate the propulsion before peeing. Maybe even drop
| anchor? If you fall overboard you could probably get back
| onboard.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Anchors are only a thing very very close to land. Few boats
| carry a thousand-foot anchor rope.
| rationalist wrote:
| Anchors do not need to touch the bottom of the ocean for
| them to slow the watercraft down or reduce its drift.
| Anchors are very much a thing far away from shore.
| wiml wrote:
| You should clip on. If you're moving around anywhere you
| could possibly fall over, and you're alone or the water isn't
| calm or you're far from shore or basically any other risk
| factor, you clip yourself to the jacklines first.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _doing something very routine at the point where land meets
| water_
|
| Men are also doing something that typically requires two hands
| on an unstable platform with limited visual cues for the
| horizon.
| hinkley wrote:
| More serious answer. The drunk man's lean is a tale as old as
| time. Get your zipper down, get situated, and your left arm
| goes against the wall to stop the world from moving out from
| under you. You should only need both hands for a moment. Less
| if you've practiced.
|
| Don't some boats have a tether to the power key, like
| treadmills?
| Mixtape wrote:
| If my memory serves, every boat I've ever been on has had
| one. In my experience though, it rarely gets used,
| especially if the individual driving is also fishing. The
| article states that Scheller was trolling at the time, so
| he likely wanted to be able to leave the console and grab
| his rod at a moment's notice. Reckless as it may be,
| driving with the power key attached to the console in some
| way rather than yourself makes that process faster and much
| easier. It's a trade-off between convenience and safety
| that, unfortunately, leads many to favor convenience a
| majority of the time.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| Seems like there should be some inexpensive way to
| buy/built a BTLE "kill switch" that hooks onto your belt.
| (And indeed a simple search turns up such a product for
| about $200.)
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Killing the power can help in some situations, but
| nowhere near all of them. A small boat moves very
| differently than a person treading water. It drifts in
| the wind. A swimmer doesn't. Even with the engine off,
| there is a good chance that he wouldn't get back on. And
| a one-foot wave isn't so small when your eyes are only a
| couple inches above the water. You need a positive
| connection between you and boat.
| patja wrote:
| The tethered dead man's cutoff is a norm on small
| outboards. I seem to recall it is even a legal requirement
| to use it in some jurisdictions (including clipping it to
| the skipper's body). But on anything out in the ocean like
| this with a larger outboard with a separate steering
| station it is not something that is normal at all. There
| are products that achieve the same outcome including
| wearable beacons that will shut the motor off if you get
| separated, but they are not common and a little expensive.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _requires two hands_
|
| That's quite a humble brag!
| mhb wrote:
| Two guys are relieving themselves into a river.
|
| First guy: Boy, that water is cold.
|
| Second guy: And deep, too!
| mmaunder wrote:
| Usually told at the the start of a trip as the "harnesses
| always on when solo on deck or at night" policy is explained to
| crew.
| beardog wrote:
| >"We got done and they were like, 'OK, roger that, Captain,' and
| I was waiting for them to say to go find them, but of course they
| can't tell you to do that, so we were just like, 'OK. We'll go
| find him.'"
|
| Why can't the coast guard tell the first responder to try to find
| them? As a layperson I thought civilian ships were often
| coordinated with to help those in distress.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Because if you tell some boating noob, they might not proceed
| carefully enough to see a victim or they might multiply the
| number of victims by making careless mistakes trying to be
| heroes.
| patja wrote:
| It does seem a bit at odds with my experience monitoring VHF 16
| while sailing. When someone is in distress or there is a report
| of an unmanned kayak (extremely common!), the Coast Guard will
| almost always put out a call for any mariners in the vicinity
| to check it out, report back, and provide aid.
| Zircom wrote:
| As most weird things along those lines in America, I can almost
| guarantee it's some sort of liability policy. They don't wanna
| be held responsible if a civilian gets themselves
| hurt/lost/killed trying to rescue someone, or does the same to
| the person they're trying to rescue, having being asked to or
| "ordered" by someone in a perceived position of authority like
| a coast guard officer.
| beardog wrote:
| I was thinking it was comparable to CPR/first aid
| instructions from 911 calls however seafaring is inherently
| more risky...
| netsharc wrote:
| Makes me wonder if, in this age of Covid, 911 operators
| would ask callers to perform CPR. Even a "Do you know how
| to perform CPR" might be interpreted as an instruction to
| do so.
| ghaff wrote:
| It makes a lot of sense to me in this case. As you suggest,
| even a "if you don't mind" from the Coast Guard could very
| reasonably be taken as a polite order which they may not have
| the authority to do in this case.
|
| >They don't wanna be held responsible if a civilian gets
| themselves hurt/lost/killed trying to rescue someone,
|
| That seems like a not unreasonable concern even if there was
| probably no material danger in this case.
| philip1209 wrote:
| This video about the "algorithm" the Coast Guard uses to search
| for missing mariners in moving water is pretty fascinating:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoXJfuPaFF8
| yafbum wrote:
| It's a great story but kind of gross the way Garmin slides in an
| ad for its products being supposedly easy to use even for people
| who haven't used them before
| mvkel wrote:
| It's on their own website. Can you blame them for promoting
| their own product? Marketing isn't journalism.
| yafbum wrote:
| Here's a header that fixes it: "We at Garmin believe it's
| essential for our products to be easy to use, and can be
| lifesaving. Here's a story that illustrates it." Not hard to
| add instead of starting it like your just going to tell a
| story.
| killjoywashere wrote:
| What?! If you invented something that saved a life, you bet
| your ass you'd be putting that on your company blog! Your post
| is not in the spirit of HN.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Anti advertising, anti big corporate and a negative slant on
| a feel good-story? It's completely HN. It just lacks a more
| efficient search pattern recommendation and a blockchain
| reference. Turns our the guy treading water also used a very
| calorie inefficient leg stroke too.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Have we considered discussing what would happen on this
| page if Javascript were to be disabled?
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| It's... on their site? Not sure I'd object to the company
| publishing the story advertising for themselves. If NYT or WaPo
| can go "nope, you've read enough, buy a subscription", Garmin
| can unobtrusively go "hey thanks for reading, consider buying
| something we make" =D
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| yea this was quite the heartstrings pulling ... advertisement
| qup wrote:
| When your easy-to-use interface saves a man's life, I think you
| get a pass for one story.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Realistically, any GPS system would have done the same,
| whether you have to touch a screen or push buttons.
|
| Wayfinding is like one of the most basic of features on these
| units.
| alar44 wrote:
| How dare a company advertise their features with an
| interesting story! Get a grip.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Making the claim that somehow the magical interface of
| the Garmin saved this man is preposterous.
|
| It's a GPS unit. It's not some magical device that
| pinpointed the person's exact position overboard and led
| them right to it. They would have been able to do the
| exact same thing on literally any other unit out there.
|
| As I said in another comment, Garmin is certainly
| entitled to post it but people are equally entitled to
| point out the ridiculous and hamfisted advertising.
| sitkack wrote:
| With one touch delete of GPS history, these two would be
| heros sealed his fate while stumbling through our hierarchy
| of menus.
|
| Upon returning to civilization and entering their story in
| the corporate bug tracker, their feature request was
| denied, as better history retention is in the +Pro model.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Anybody that has dealt with a marine GPS units can handle
| all of them. These aren't sophisticated interfaces and
| the features they offer for the most part is
| standardized. It's not like it controls a spaceship or
| something, it's _just_ a GPS unit.
|
| Would a random passerby potentially fuck things up?
| Maybe, but realistically probably not. Would the guy that
| just _jumped from moving boat to moving boat_? No, they
| have obviously seen and used one of these before.
|
| > Upon returning to civilization and entering their story
| in the corporate bug tracker, their feature request was
| denied, as better history retention is in the +Pro model.
|
| Garmin, like practically every company out there, is well
| known to hide features behind premium models. Not sure
| exactly what point it is you're trying to make but Garmin
| isn't a magical snowflake who doesn't partake in this
| practice.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Good luck trying to figure out how to do this on garmin's
| handheld devices in a hurry!
| gist wrote:
| > but kind of gross the way Garmin slides in an ad for its
| products
|
| Gross? So we have a company that is in business to make money
| and employs people and spends money at other companies (that
| employ and give people jobs). And they can't do obvious
| marketing. And take advantage of a good opportunity to plug
| their product? Everybody and every company just has to be for
| the common good? Be humble no bragging and the world will be a
| path to your door?
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| They certainly can. And people are certainly able to comment
| on how hamfisted the marketing is. Freedom of speech and all
| that.
| brewdad wrote:
| It's a corporate blog. What do you expect them to write?
|
| "The features of our GPS allowed a passerby to save an
| overboard boater. Really any generic GPS unit from Walmart
| would have done the same though."
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| As I said, they're certainly free to say whatever they
| want to say. But people are free to criticize what they
| chose to write.
|
| A less hamfisted approach would, for instance, remove the
| quotes from the guy which were clearly prompted by the PR
| folks at Garmin.
| beefman wrote:
| A little tacky, but bad UI does have consequences. Garmin UIs
| have always been fantastic in my experience.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| But apparently it's okay when Apple convinces millions of
| unprepared people that their iphone will save them if they get
| lost or in trouble in the wilderness?
|
| The Apple "safety" features have cost more lives than they've
| saved due to first responders wasting time on fake iAlerts that
| keep them away from real emergencies.
| asmor wrote:
| The car crash detection, maybe. The fall detection seemed to
| have been a success though.
| mvkel wrote:
| A woman used the SOS feature recently to get rescued, so ..
| yes?
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Who said it's okay? All the media coverage I have seen point
| to this iPhone feature being a pain in the ass for first
| responders (skiers generating an inordinate amount of fake
| calls).
|
| Also, please point to hard data and all the lives this has
| actually cost.
| ghaff wrote:
| The ski falling story has been making the rounds. And I can
| certainly see skiing as a fertile source for false fall
| detection alerts. I would (try to remember to) disable it
| if I were downhill skiing if I otherwise had it active--
| which I don't. (And really haven't decided if I should or
| shouldn't.) But I also haven't actually seen data that this
| is a genuine problem much less one that is overwhelming
| emergency services and causing widespread carnage.
|
| As for the satellite SOS, actual search and rescue people
| I've talked to have been of the opinion that they'd rather
| someone who is in trouble or thinks they're in trouble
| reach out for help sooner rather than later. It doesn't
| mean a full-scale rescue needs to be mounted. Someone can
| often be talked through what their problem is. It's also
| not like people didn't already have this capability so long
| as they were in cell phone coverage.
| 10x_contrarian wrote:
| > had the Garmin technology been less intuitive for an
| unfamiliar boater in a stressful situation -- this story
| could've ended so much differently
|
| This line made me look at the URL and realize I was reading an
| advertisement.
| iso1631 wrote:
| > The boat had a Garmin GPS marine system, and while Andrew
| said he hadn't been familiar with Garmin units prior to that,
| it was easy to use, allowing him to figure it out quickly.
|
| Got me
| jacurtis wrote:
| The article ended with:
|
| > Andrew Sherman has since upgraded his tech on his own
| boat.
|
| > "I bought a Garmin unit because I was so impressed with
| Sascha's," he said.
|
| Definitely written to remind us all that Garmin GPS are
| easy to use. Oh yeah, someone's life was saved, but don't
| lose track on the shiny touchscreen GPS haha.
| [deleted]
| userbinator wrote:
| I saw the URL before reading the article, and was basically
| expecting the product placement as a punchline.
| [deleted]
| tobyjsullivan wrote:
| It's not smooth but not terrible considering this is corporate
| blog content, not journalism.
|
| At least they link to the original article which, after a quick
| scan, seems much better written.
|
| https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/inspire/life/how-a-fisherman...
| victor9000 wrote:
| Much better link, thanks!
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Reader's Digest is not "journalism." They take a fairly
| simple and straightforward event and embellish the hell out
| of it to make into some grand tale, keeping it at about a 5th
| grade reading level.
|
| Compare and contrast the story to the local TV station
| writeup:
|
| https://www.wistv.com/2021/07/07/father-son-rescue-
| missing-b...
|
| Two fishermen see a boat with nobody piloting it, alert the
| coast guard, follow the breadcrumb trail on the GPS unit, and
| find the boat's owner. Owner is OK.
|
| This story is why you wear the safety disconnect cord, or
| purchase a cable-less shutoff system that uses an radio-
| beacon fob you wear. Or, you don't go deep-water solo...
| tobyjsullivan wrote:
| Perhaps journalism wasn't the word I should have used
| there. What would you call writing about factual events in
| a way that makes them interesting to read?
|
| That said, I don't think captivating writing is outside the
| bounds of true journalism. Some might argue that's what
| journalism is supposed to be. I.e., "here's an interesting
| event and here's why it's interesting."
| snemvalts wrote:
| Learned from the best
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOHj5kGU4fY
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Garmin has a rep for difficult to use devices so if they worked
| hard enough on this one that it could be used to save a guys
| life (which it was! The track was mission critical for this
| save), they get to brag a little about their role. This kind of
| story might even ingrain better UI as a priority inside their
| org which would be good for all their future customers
| duxup wrote:
| The story is on garmin.com ... call me crazy but I don't find
| this the least bit "gross".
| yafbum wrote:
| It would be much better to own up the pitch upfront. Like,
| start with a line at the top saying something like "We at
| Garmin believe it's essential for our products to be easy to
| use, and can be lifesaving. Here's a story that shows what we
| mean... " Instead the content _reads_ like a story about
| someone about to lose their life at sea. It's not a big lift
| but would likely make a big change to the perception I (and
| apparently others) have of this piece.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I'm with you. All this cringe culture stuff is really too
| much. It's been really annoying lately. Some sort of weird
| Puritan outbreak.
| asmor wrote:
| My next thought was "are Garmin and Gatorade associated?".
| chrisdalke wrote:
| Amazing story and the pilot of that boat is lucky to be alive. I
| think larger center consoles should ship standard with a wireless
| safety lanyard instead of a wired one, because very few people
| seem to actually use the wired lanyard because it's inconvenient.
| this is the exact situation where that would help.
| duxup wrote:
| This is one of those things that I always wondered about.
|
| The risks are really apparent though for anyone out on a boat
| and it just doesn't seem to be the standard operating procedure
| for most folks.
| Aeolun wrote:
| This is not something I ever considered until I played
| Stormworks, and my boat kept running away from me every half
| hour.
| blamazon wrote:
| Wireless lanyard, today I learned! Looks like a complete setup
| from 'FELL Marine' can be had for less than 300 bucks. That is
| very little money for peace of mind.
| StianOvrevage wrote:
| I installed the Fell Marine Mob+ myself on my 23 foot day
| cruiser a year ago and it works very well.
|
| The only problem I've had is false positive cut-offs when I'm
| on the dock untying or when I prepare to dock and I use the
| arm with the wireless FOB on in the rear compartments of the
| boat.
|
| I could probably fix it by angling the antennae so that it
| was upright instead of pointing out horizontally behind the
| base unit, but TBH it's such a infrequent issue and only
| happens at no/low speed anyway that I haven't bothered.
|
| On the plus side at least I know that it does cut the engine
| and probably would in a real situation as well.
| pifm_guy wrote:
| False negatives are more worrying. On a small speedboat, a
| common cause of death is that the captain falls overboard
| while the boat is doing a sharp turn at speed. The boat
| then does a 360 circle and within 10 seconds runs over the
| captain before anyone else in the boat can intervene.
|
| Will these wireless keyfobs reliably cut out within 10
| seconds when the boat never goes more than say 60 feet from
| the captain? I suspect not.
| burnished wrote:
| Would a wired one that went unused prevent that? That
| would seem to be the core problem in your scenario - the
| existing technology that would not have a false negative
| here is going unused.
|
| Also, can you cite any sources for that event being
| common (relatively at least)? Not that I doubt you
| specifically, the scenario is just so horrifying that I
| am generally having trouble accepting it.
| brk wrote:
| Go out with a buddy sometime on a day with a light wind.
| Put your boat at a slow cruise and then jump off
| (carefully). See if you can actually get back to your boat
| before you're exhausted (and need your buddy to pull around
| and pick you up).
|
| In a light wind or current an average boat is still going
| to be moving faster than most people can swim.
|
| The wireless kill switch is good. But pair it with an
| inflatable PFD.
| blamazon wrote:
| It's a tough engineering challenge but it be cool if
| there was some kind of collapsible 'foot flippers' (is
| there a more technical term?) one could pull out of like
| a tube attached to a PFD.
|
| I was watching the video of that boat that rolled at the
| Columbia river outlet in Oregon and the USCG rescue
| swimmer was astoundingly fast with the fins on.
| StianOvrevage wrote:
| That's a very good suggestion actually. It's probably a
| very helpful, and I expect humbling, exercise.
|
| (Have to remember to teach the buddy how to override the
| MOB-system so that he can actually start the engine after
| I go in the water though, lest it become a real
| situation)
| chrisdalke wrote:
| I use a fanny-pack style autoinflating PFD which actually
| comes with a ring to connect the lanyard to. Definitely
| agreed you need both.
| lazyant wrote:
| 60% 1 star ratings on Amazon (failing device), still no peace
| of mind but better than nothing :-(
| RockRobotRock wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/937/
| bsder wrote:
| Anyone who buys a _safety system_ from Amazon is completely
| out of their gourd.
| blamazon wrote:
| I was not able to reproduce this result. Can you link?
| ghaff wrote:
| I assume this. https://www.amazon.com/product-
| reviews/B075MMHYMK/
|
| Overall the rating is pretty good but definitely a number
| of one stars.
|
| The challenge with a lot of safety and backup systems is
| that you might never need them, but if you do need them
| they absolutely _have to_ work.
| Aeolun wrote:
| All the failure modes seem to have to do with the engines
| not starting when someone needs them, which sounds ok to
| me.
|
| Or maybe that's survivorship bias, and the ones where the
| engines do not properly cut out are never in a position
| to review.
| blamazon wrote:
| For what it's worth I flipped through the 1 star, 2 star,
| and 3 star reviews and found one that indicated a false
| negative, the rest seemed to indicate false positive.
| With it being a predominantly self-installed electrical
| system I question if every reviewer's install was done
| correctly.
| lazyant wrote:
| https://www.amazon.ca/product-
| reviews/B075MMHYMK/ref=acr_dp_... top result in Canada
| blamazon wrote:
| That listing has two total ratings, one is 5 star and one
| is 1 star, with no textual reviews. Doesn't feel like
| useful data to me.
| andrewem wrote:
| The guy who fell in the water talks about that here:
| "Specifically, he wants people to know there are wireless
| killswitches available that can attach to passengers as well as
| the captain."
|
| https://www.wwaytv3.com/i-was-going-to-die-man-goes-overboar...
| analog31 wrote:
| Moreover, the lanyard should include a panic button that sends
| out a SOS from the boat's radio.
| wil421 wrote:
| There's some fishing guys on YouTube I watch and some of them
| have an app on their phone to shut the motor off. If they fall
| overboard the motor shuts off when the phone isn't close
| enough. Some also wear automatically inflated life jackets but
| as a kayaker I don't trust them.
| malandrew wrote:
| IMHO aUrooj inflated life jackets generally make no sense for
| kayaking. It's too easy to end up in the drink casually and
| it's like $60+ per re-arming kit.
|
| Are those fishing kayaks so stable that they have very little
| expectation of going overboard comparable to being on a
| powerboat or sail boat? I use touring and whitewater kayaks
| myself.
|
| I kayak and sail so I have life jackets for both use cases
| (two type V rescue jackets for kayaking and 4 type V
| inflatables for sailing to accommodate friends and better the
| much safer European spinlock deckvests, which are not USCG
| approved, so I keep USCG approved inflatables on board too)
| sitkack wrote:
| > an app on their phone to shut the motor off.
|
| The failure risk here is the phone doesn't go with you and it
| keeps chugging along.
| Mixtape wrote:
| This is doubled by the fact that lots of boaters will try
| to keep their phone as far from the water as possible for
| safety's sake. In practice, using your phone is better than
| using nothing at all, but a dedicated waterproof device
| that you can clip onto your clothes and forget about is by
| far the better option.
| markdown wrote:
| > Some also wear automatically inflated life jackets but as a
| kayaker I don't trust them.
|
| Do you trust them as an adult? Or in some other context? What
| about kayaking makes you distrust them? Should I, a non-
| kayaker, trust them?
| wlll wrote:
| I'm a sailor (yachts, not dinghys), not a kayaker.
|
| > Do you trust them as an adult?
|
| Yes. The alternative (ignoring the solid foam type of life
| jacket that you see kids wear) is a manually inflating one.
| They use the same CO2 cylinder with a bladder, but you have
| to pull a cord to inflate them. You can buy the exact same
| model of life jacket as auto or manual inflating. The auto
| inflating ones also have a cord you can pull if you need
| to.
|
| There is some debate in the sailing community as to whether
| the auto or manual jackets are a better idea. With the
| manual ones you can manoeuvre better in the water if you
| don't inflate the jacket so you have a chance to swim to
| safety, perhaps climbing back on your boat, but if you get
| knocked unconscious or you're in shock (or the boats still
| sailing) then that's going to be harder/impossible to do.
|
| Personally me and my immediate family have auto inflating
| ones, this model specifically:
| https://crewsaver.com/uk/products/16708/ErgoFit190N. We
| have some more basic models for guests. I figure I'm
| unlikely to be sailing single handed and the best chance of
| survival offshore is getting picked up by the crew of the
| boat you were just in. Plus, I'm in NW UK, cold water shock
| is a real thing. Staying afloat in the middle of the sea is
| going to be the main thing you're going to want to be
| concentrating on.
|
| > Or in some other context? What about kayaking makes you
| distrust them?
|
| I wouldn't wear an auto-inflating jacket anywhere that I'm
| likely to get dunked in the water as a matter of course.
| You'll just inflate the jacket when you don't want to, it
| will be completely in the way and you will have to deflate
| it and it's then mostly useless until it's repacked with a
| new gas cylinder. Plus, you're unlikely to be in the big
| seas that would make an auto-inflater safer.
|
| That said, it can get wet enough on a sailing yacht that
| jackets can get wet enough to be inflated, but that's very
| uncommon. Pretty funny though :)
|
| > Should I, a non-kayaker, trust them?
|
| It depends what you're doing. Sailing, going out on a
| pleasure boat, day trips, weeks at sea, then sure. Stick
| one on each of your family and guests, show them the pull
| cord and tell them not to pull it unless they need to, and
| you can pretty much rest assured that if they fall in
| they're going to float until you can get to them. You can
| also get beacons you can add to them, I've added them to
| mine.
| brewdad wrote:
| Shouldn't a kayaker already be wearing a PFD? In my state
| they are mandatory. They make PFDs that work specifically
| with kayaks and their lowered seating.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| In many states it's mandatory to have one at all times but
| not mandatory to be actually worn at all times.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Specifically for kayak-related reasons?
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| Most likely. They are not supposed to trigger when getting
| wet, even very wet, but _are_ supposed to trigger when you
| go into the water.
|
| You really shouldn't wear an auto-inflating PFD in a
| situation where going into the water isn't 100% a bad
| thing. Kayaking seems to be one of those activities where
| you wouldn't want it. Even dinghy sailing/racing seems like
| a poor use case.
|
| In case anyone is unfamiliar with them, though, they all
| have a manual pull handle that is supposed to trigger the
| CO2 canister, and as a 3rd backup they even have a tube you
| can pull up to your face and a one-way valve so you can
| blow them up with your mouth.
| thrill wrote:
| 'Jack, a math major at the Naval Academy, has run the numbers
| again and again, and it just doesn't make sense. "At some points
| I think we were within even half a mile of him," Andrew said,
| "but it wasn't until the end that we came onto him.'
|
| Come on man ... you quit looking once you found him - that's why
| it's called 'the end' - no special math required.
| umvi wrote:
| "The end" could also be the point where they call it quits
| regardless of if they found him.
| myself248 wrote:
| Isn't it weird how things are always in the last place you
| look?
| squishy47 wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3NTtagBmKY
| leeoniya wrote:
| the actual saying is "last place you _think_ to look " or
| "last place you expect" (because it's so obvious /
| uninteresting). but that doesnt make a joke.
| brookst wrote:
| You can fix this by continuing to look after you've found
| something. "Phew, glad my keys were in the first place I
| looked, and not the next ten"
| moffkalast wrote:
| Just in case you find any extra keys to unlock those bonus
| rooms, it's just good completionist practice.
| wlll wrote:
| The Fallout 3 "I'm going to find every last tin can in
| this creepy abandoned building" method.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| It's important not to end the experiment prematurely in
| order to obtain a proper set of data. Otherwise we end up
| with conclusions like, "it's always in the last place you
| look."
| lisper wrote:
| You never know, there could be more keys. Confirmation
| bias is a powerful thing.
| scintill76 wrote:
| I always do my searches in constant time, to foil timing
| attacks.
| jahewson wrote:
| I like to start with a failing unit test by deliberately
| looking for the keys somewhere I know they're not.
| wlll wrote:
| It's important you do this to defeat timing based attacks
| that might try to determine where you usually put your keys
| based on the time taken to cut short the search.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| I find they're often in the first place you look but that you
| miss the on the first cursory look.
| scruple wrote:
| A lot like getting the USB plug right the first time but
| not realizing it. Happens every time.
| oxfeed65261 wrote:
| It's almost always in the Eureka Zone.
|
| https://nevalalee.wordpress.com/2014/04/19/the-eureka-zone/
| Hendrikto wrote:
| > had the Garmin technology been less intuitive for an unfamiliar
| boater in a stressful situation -- this story could've ended so
| much differently.
|
| Absolutely shameless...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Isn't this what we want marketing to be? Informative, empirical
| and helpful?
| marstall wrote:
| tight writing, Garmin.com!
| pauldprice wrote:
| If I were an SEO manager, Garmin would be the dream job. They get
| so much excellent content with real, meaningful stories to tell.
| This article is pure SEO gold.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| The inreach rescues always sound like they'd make for good
| movie plots!
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Nice story but after the whole hacking thing and my own
| experiences with their acquisition of delorme I'd steer clear of
| Garmin if possible.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23926289
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/4/21353842/garmin-ransomware...
| EB-Barrington wrote:
| [dead]
| akiselev wrote:
| Do you plan on avoiding airlines your entire life? Cause Garmin
| makes some of the most important avionics.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| That's not exactly consumer level gear though is it, my in
| reach is not subject to FAA regulations
| [deleted]
| pibechorro wrote:
| Great story, but honestly Garmin is not any better than most
| other major brands. They buy out their competition, that's their
| "greatness". Navionics is a better chart plotter (which they
| bought up) and some of the best features (active captain) where
| community sourced info they also bought up.
| puterich123 wrote:
| The takeaway here is not "Divine intervention" but: A lot of
| people fall off boats and die while taking a leak.
| benatkin wrote:
| Is the author from the UK? "Pile of weed" sounds like marijuana.
| I would say "pile of weeds". Like "some weed" vs "some weeds".
| Plus https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/another-word-
| for/relieve_o...
| ajjenkins wrote:
| When describing how the boat owner fell off his boat, the author
| said it could've happened to anyone, but it sounds like he was
| peeing off the side of his boat while the engine was running.
|
| I don't know, but that sounds pretty dumb to me.
| blackoil wrote:
| Anyone who travelled on old Indian railway can tell you one
| hand to hold the rod and other to hold a rod.
| evan_ wrote:
| ...And everyone does dumb things once in a while.
| spicybright wrote:
| Being alone, not being at the controls while you're driving,
| dangling near the edge, not wearing a life jacket.
|
| Just not doing one of those things would have prevented or
| drastically improved things.
|
| He was even a lifeguard and served in the coast guard. It's
| easy to get complacent!
| akiselev wrote:
| It's one of the leading causes of death in boating.
|
| The leading causes of death in general aviation are the weather
| and running out of fuel.
|
| Humans are pretty dumb.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's a not unheard of cause of death in the Grand Canyon as
| well. Someone gets up to take a pee at night (you're supposed
| to pee in the river), maybe they're a bit drunk, and they
| fall in and get swept downriver.
| hackernewds wrote:
| They fall from the grand canyon into the river? that's a
| gigantic fall
| ghaff wrote:
| On river trips when camping at night.
|
| Though people have also died pretending to fall from the
| rim and then they actually do. (You don't normally fall
| all the way--the walls aren't that shear--but you fall
| far enough.)
| bradfitz wrote:
| > The story was simple, really, and one that could happen to
| almost any boater on any given day. Sascha had gone to the side
| to relieve himself and simply fell overboard.
|
| Almost any boater!
| puterich123 wrote:
| The takeaway here is not "Divine intervention" it's either: A lot
| of people fall off boats and die while taking a leak, or there
| are so many people on the ocean, that if you go in a straight
| line, you're probably going to meet someone.
| tobyjsullivan wrote:
| That's not the takeaway _if_ either of those things are true.
| I'm not sure there's much evidence supporting either of those
| statements. The ocean is huge.
|
| I'm not a religious person so I'd say this is a happy
| coincidence. And coincidences involving rescues make great
| stories.
| curiousgal wrote:
| Is it just me or is the title extremely confusing? Why do writers
| do this?
| 10x_contrarian wrote:
| It's written by the Garmin PR team - their headlines are as
| intuitive as their device UIs!
|
| This article is much better:
| https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/inspire/life/how-a-fisherman...
| renewiltord wrote:
| I understood it first time. What was confusing to you?
|
| Ghost Boat - Either the craft didn't exist or it has no pilot
|
| With Garmin GPS - okay, it's the no pilot case
|
| Leads - Okay, they followed it to a waypoint or they discovered
| it motoring aimlessly
|
| Father-Son Duo - these two were the rescuers, cool
|
| To Man overboard - okay, pilot fell off the boat
|
| Definitely clear to me on first read and enough for me to click
| through.
| lazyant wrote:
| as a non-native English speaker, it initially read as
| (something boat) causes (father/son) to (go overboard)
| 10x_contrarian wrote:
| I'm a native english speaker but don't really have a marine
| background. I also read it as the father/son somehow going
| overboard.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Fair enough. I can see how you could have reached that
| conclusion. I suppose it's written for a native speaker.
|
| For what it's worth, ChatGPT "comprehends" it correctly so
| perhaps one day we can have a headline auto-expander.
| sakopov wrote:
| I'm not a native speaker either and I think what threw me
| off was the "Man Overboard" bit, which is usually used as a
| "maritime call" so to speak. So in other words, it wasn't
| clear to me who was overboard, the father-son duo or
| somebody else. What I think the title should have been is
| "Ghost Boat with Garmin GPS Leads Father-Son Duo to a Man
| Overboard", notice "a man overboard" to clearly indicate
| that they were led to someone who was overboard.
| robocat wrote:
| It's not your fault: the title is very confusing to me
| and my mother tongue is English. Perhaps finding it
| confusing is a sign that your English is very good.
| myself248 wrote:
| Made perfect sense to me, but I think if I didn't already know
| "Man-overboard" as a single term made up of two words, I
| might've assumed "overboard" modified something else like
| "leads" or "duo", and then it would've been quite confusing.
| blamazon wrote:
| For me it's kinda like those visual illusions that look like a
| dog or a duck but never both. When I first saw this title I was
| like "the heck is that word salad?" but now after reading the
| article I can toggle it from making sense to not making sense.
| Duck to dog and back again.
|
| Postulating as to why writers do this generally - Imagine you
| work in Garmin PR and you've been looking at this story,
| thinking about this story, sending and receiving emails about
| this story, having meetings about this story, etc, for way too
| long. It suffuses into the tissue of your brain. The title now
| makes perfect sense to you and you're so entrenched that you
| can't see it that other way.
|
| Finally, it's Friday. 4pm. Before a long weekend. You're going
| on an amazing trip to the mountains and you're excited to not
| think about marine GPS systems for ~72 hours. You've got the
| post scheduled. Anton, your coworker, pings you and says "hey,
| should we set up some time to talk about potentially reworking
| this title? I showed the piece to a friend and they didn't
| 'get' the title." You sigh, but dutifully pull up Anton's
| calendar and start scrolling, only to realize he's taking all
| of next week off and the week after you're going to a
| conference to extoll the virtues of marine GPS systems and the
| week after that he's going to a conference to extoll the
| virtues of marine GPS systems and you're just tired of all
| this, so you click the 'thumbs up' emoji, close your laptop,
| and the whole thing just vanishes from everyone's mind. It's
| the weekend, baby!
| dlgeek wrote:
| I mean, I get that it's a Garmin press release, but did anyone
| else find the inserts about the GPS to be tacky?
| lancefisher wrote:
| I usually would, but I actually didn't find it tacky in this
| article up until the end where the article mentioned they were
| so impressed that they upgraded their own boat. That was just a
| little bit tacky, but not terrible given it was a press
| release. The rest is how I would talk about it while sailing. I
| often say "the Garmin" instead of "the chart plotter".
| anonymousiam wrote:
| If the story is true, why not use it for advertising?
|
| Here's a link to a similar page for a completely different
| product: https://www.valentine1.com/v1-moments/
| eschneider wrote:
| Nah. Good PR is where you find it.
| myself248 wrote:
| Not at all. It's necessary detail for the story to make sense,
| and of course Garmin is quite proud that their device played a
| role in saving a life.
|
| I know what they mean about ease of use, too. In the early
| 2000's I had a Garmin eTrex GPS receiver, the little
| translucent green one. Did a lot of hiking and geocaching with
| it, hooked it to my laptop for wardriving, etc. And everything
| I ever asked it to do was so easy -- there was no touchscreen
| and the click-stick only had five "buttons", but the UI was
| just profoundly intuitive.
|
| I said at the time that if Garmin ever made a cellphone (this
| was pre-smartphone and every phone reinvented its own
| craptastic UI), I'd buy one in a heartbeat. Of course they did
| release some Garmin-branded phones later, well into the Android
| era, and the UI is generic Android. So much for that, and
| more's the pity.
|
| But I believe their marine instruments retain some of that old-
| fashioned intuition, so anyone could just walk up and figure
| out the interface. And that plays a role in the story, so it's
| absolutely relevant to mention.
| nanidin wrote:
| The nuvifone was based on embedded Linux and the UI was
| implemented in a mix of Qt and possibly Tcl/Tk. I'm not sure
| how much Android played into things, but there was definitely
| inspiration from the iPhone. It was the first phone Garmin
| put out.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Man, if you can figure out a Garmin just by walking up to one
| and figuring out the interface, you have several more degrees
| than most people. If you know one, you know most of the
| others, but if you know none, and you don't have the manual,
| those things are confusing af.
| akiselev wrote:
| There's UX spillover from their avionics division, which has
| indirect funding via NTSB recommending/mandating improvements
| after accidents
| goldenchrome wrote:
| If you made a tool and you found out that someone used your
| tool to save someone's life, wouldn't you be proud of yourself
| for your good work? What's the harm in sharing the good news?
| sudhirj wrote:
| A little bit, but hey, they're not hiding anything. Everyone is
| allowed to toot their own horn. I'd more pissed if this was
| some paid PR piece hidden in a newspaper.
| koolba wrote:
| To be fair, if the waypoints weren't logged in the Garmin they
| would never have found the overboard man.
| snozolli wrote:
| The waypoints could have been logged in _anything_. Any GPS,
| or even a Google location history on a phone they found.
|
| The heroes of the story are the two men.
|
| It would be like if someone were about to sucker punch a
| woman and you happened to be standing in the way. You're not
| a hero, you just happened to be present.
|
| It's also a type of scare mongering. "You might fall
| overboard while peeing, and our product could save your life,
| just look at this phenomenally unlikely scenario!" The much
| smarter solution is to use a wireless lanyard or just pee
| inside the boat, as commented elsewhere here.
| neilv wrote:
| This was a nice story -- of smart and prepared people, dropping
| what they were doing to do the right thing against the odds, with
| some luck/divine help, to save someone -- and I think I'm going
| to stop online stuff on a high note for this Sunday. :)
| almog wrote:
| On a tangent -- if you were to find a lost Garmin InReach device,
| Garmin won't let you notify its owner:
| https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=gpi2lWn8aE0dPyEfx6wQ78
|
| Assuming the device has been lost for a while, it's likely that
| its subscription is over, thus you cannot use it to contact any
| of the previous owner contacts, which makes sense from privacy
| perspective, yet I see no reason why Garmin will deliberately not
| have any process of notifying the owner once your possession of
| the device has been established
| californical wrote:
| I think that makes sense, many people don't want their contact
| info given out to someone who happened to find their lost
| device. If they wanted that, they could always just add a
| keychain tag with their name and phone number to the device
| almog wrote:
| I agree and pointed to the fact that it makes sense they
| wouldn't let you contact the owner directly and added that
| one solution could have been to have Garmin notify the owner
| that someone found their device.
|
| When I lost my PLB (an emergency only type device) I
| contacted NOAA to notify them of it so that in case it
| accidentally gets activated, COSPAS SARSAT won't send an SAR
| team to the midi pyrenees. Not only did they respond within
| minutes but they told me that in case someone will find it
| and contact them, they can share my details (to which I
| happily agreed).
| bagels wrote:
| Simple solution is for Garmin to accept and reship the device
| since they already know the owner?
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