Sea Scouts find reason to believe expiration dates on safety devices.

Sea Scout Ship 41 along with members of Bay Boat Club set off pyrotechnic visual safety devices at the beach. This exercise was conducted with the permission of Chief of Police, Mr. David Wright, to have done so without permission in a non emergency would have been breaking the law. Safety glasses and gloves were used in all demonstrations.

The goal was two fold, firstly, to give the scouts practice is using the visual safety devices and secondly, to determine the validity of and need for an expiration date.

Dalton had no trouble igniting the orange flare. We all found it very effective and highly visible in the daylight. 

Nate ignited the red flare with only a couple of strikes on it's head.  The flare burned for at least 3 minutes, we noticed hot drippings from the flare and understood the warning to hold the flare over the side of a boat in distress.

All the flares tested ignited but if the expiration date was well past the due date the brilliance and time of burning was reduced on a number of the flares.

After proper instruction by a Bay Boat Club trustee, the scouts fired 12 gauge distress shells

 

Despite the higher number of failures and poor performers with the expired signal shells Andrew managed to fire on successfully out over the water.

After an hour all flares and shells had be set off.  Our goals were met, the Sea Scouts trained and yes, expiration dated do matter.