Two overboard location alert systems (OLAS) from Exposure Lights can make the difference between life and death. The first, OLAS Guardian, is a wireless kill switch for RIB drivers. It is designed to protect us from those times when we do the thing that we tell ourselves only “other people” ever do. It’s that moment when you unclip your kill cord to walk to the front or the back of the RIB and then forget to clip back on again.
It consists of a small battery-powered transmitter that the skipper wears round the wrist, a waterproof receiver that is wired into the boat’s kill switch system and a simple panelmounted control switch for the helm itself. It can also be linked to a free OLAS app for added functionality although this is not needed for the core kill cord function.
The system works by sending a regular stream of low-energy Bluetooth transmissions between the personal transmitter and the control box. As soon as this signal is lost, it stops the engine within two seconds.
