The NSRI H/O has announced the launch of a free smart phone app that monitors a small boat or canoe’s journey and alerts emergency contacts if the craft fails to return to shore on time.
By launching this app the NSRI is responding to a need in the paddling and small craft community.
Photo: Richard Arderne
“Safetrx is an international company with a solid reputation,” says NSRI CEO Dr Cleeve Robertson. “It has been successfully used in other countries. It is another tool that paddlers and small craft users can add to their safety equipment, which will help to take the ‘search’ out of Search and Rescue,” Robertson says.
The paddler’s or skipper’s family and friends are listed in the emergency contacts on their Apple (iPhone/iPad) and Android handsets. If the paddler or skipper does not return by the time given, the ‘emergency contacts’ will be alerted via sms and advised to alert the Maritime Rescue Co-Ordination Centre (MRCC).
Paddlers and skippers can enter their journey details and know their journey is being tracked.
The app periodically sends location data back to Safetrx servers so the NSRI’s volunteer duty crew can be given the last known position of the missing small craft.
For more info: http://www.nsri.org.za/safetrx/
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