4 September 2009

McMurdo’s good news story

A win at MAATS in the Safety Category for the new Fast Find PLB is the crowning glory of a busy seven months for McMurdo.  The company so far this year appears to be one of the lucky marine businesses bucking the trend of recession that so many other equipment companies have suffered in recent months.  McMurdo has seen a very significant growth in sales in the first half of 2009, and the manufacturing output has already exceeded the total for 2008. Jeremy Harrison, General Manager of McMurdo explains “We have experienced continual growth since the acquisition of McMurdo by Signature Industries Ltd back in April 2007.  A lot of this has to be attributed to the investment that we have put into developing affordable market leading products for the world’s outdoor safety markets, plus the general growth in safety awareness in our everyday lives”.  He adds “We expect this growth continuing in the foreseeable future”. 

McMurdo’s recent success has partly been a result of the introduction of the new Fast Find 200 series PLB.  The very latest Personal Locator Beacon (PLB), the Fast Find is currently the smallest 406MHz personal location beacon available in the world.  At only 150g and 106mm in length, the mobile phone-proportioned life saver has been extremely popular since the moment it was launched back in February of this year.  The 50 channel GPS model, the 210, means that an accurate position along with a unique personal identification number is transmitted to the global 406 MHz international Search and Rescue satellite system extremely quickly, normally within a few minutes of switch on, even in the poorest reception and transmission locations around the world. This gives the world’s search and rescue bodies a much greater chance of pulling you out alive.

At MAATS (the Marine Aftermarket Accessories Trade Show), which was held in Orlando last week, one of the judges, top writer and electronics expert Ben Ellison summed up the Fast Find when he commented “At $299, McMurdo puts a high performance PLB within the budget of even the casual boater”.

This is the second recent victory at MAATS for McMurdo whose Smartfind EPIRB (Emergency Positioning Indicating Radio Beacon) won the Electronics category two years ago in 2007.

McMurdo is also enjoying a sales boost as a result of the turn-off of the older and less reliable 121.5MHz global search and rescue satellite system on February 1st of this year.  As a result many boaters and safety conscious outdoor enthusiasts have had to replace their existing beacons with newer, more effective and reliable 406MHZ emergency location beacons. COSPAS SARSAT, the international body responsible for the management and technical performance of the 406MHz international search and rescue satellite system, have predicted that this global growth of ownership will continue for a number of years to come.

Another significant growth factor for McMurdo has been the surge in new ship building in recent years, although this is set to slow in the near future due to the global economic down turn.  406MHZ EPIRBs are a mandatory carriage on all commercial vessels over 300GT.

Meanwhile the leisure boating market, already suffering due to the global economy, is buying more 406MHz emergency location beacons than ever before. This increase has been due to the increased affordability of 406MHz beacons and the introduction of the more versatile 406MHZ PLBs. Leisure boaters, in most cases are left to voluntarily carry either an 406MHz EPIRB or PLB and so value for money and suitability have become major purchasing criteria. As a result we have seen a significant move to GPS emergency location beacons and to the smaller personal carriage PLB.  The national legislation process to permit the registration of PLBs in individual countries throughout the world has also progressed rapidly opening up new markets all over the world including non marine activities such as general aviation and land applications including, hiking, mountain climbing, fishing, hunting and even business applications such as loan workers etc. The latter has also added to the recent boom in 406MHZ ownership and creates newer, tougher challenges of how do we successfully reach all of these new markets. 

We have also witnessed the positive and proactive promotion and adoption of both 406MHz EPIRBs and PLBs by government agencies and national search and rescue bodies in specific countries around the world, including America, New Zealand and Australia. This has largely been due to two major benefits that these bodies have experienced with the 406MHz search and rescue satellite system: reduced search times due to the accuracy and speed of the system plus a greater success rate in saving lives. 26,800 lives have been saved by the COSPAS SARSAT system since 1982.  202 people were rescued at sea by the American authorities in 2008 through the system and 95 have so far been rescued this year.

More and more countries are coming onboard with approving the usage of 406 MHz emergency distress beacons for use at sea, on land and in the air.  Approvals for land usage are particularly significant, as this opens up the market to a much greater population than just seafarers, and aviators who fear ditching in the sea.  America, France, Australia, New Zealand and Sweden lead the way for providing an infrastructure for land based rescues. Ireland has just last month signalled the go ahead to introduce the necessary legislation.  But the UK is lagging behind, and currently 406MHz emergency location beacons can only legally be registered and used by people in trouble at sea or in the air within the UK.  However, the parliamentary process is in progress and it is likely that once legislation is passed McMurdo will see another surge in sales, since the UK brand enjoys good national recognition.

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