Every New Years I try to fire off the half-dozen flares I carry in my PFD pocket. Last year, it was "SkyBlazers" and I think four out of six were duds. This year it's "Star Tracers" and five out of the six were duds. On one, the wire rusted out. Another fired, but fizzled in the tube. On the rest, the wires pulled cleanly, but they didn't fire at all. Funny thing is that the Star Tracer design *looks* really good - about 100% more functional than Sky Blazer's... Same bottom line though..... Maybe there's an inherant problem in self-contained flares because of the firing wire compromising the water-tightness of the chamber? I've avoided the shotgun-style because of the bulk of the pistol mechanism and the complexity (i.e. It could be tough to load with frozen fingers....and if it gets swept away, it's all over...) but they *do* seem to have an inherantly better design for sealing out water....maybe that's the only way.... Has anybody subjected shotgun-style flares to intermittant immersion for a season and had more than half of them work? How about some experiences with other hand-held brands? ----------------------- Pete Cresswell *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Sat Jan 02 1999 - 15:42:53 PST
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