News Important safety update about Personal Location Beacons

We are administering funding from Trinity House, Department for Transport and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency to help commercial fishing vessel owners buy safety equipment for their crew. Applicants can receive £200 per item towards the cost of a Personal Flotation Device (PFD) with an integrated Personal Location Beacon (PLB) or a PLB on its own.

This week, we released a video with tips on how to attach a PLB to a PFD. While the video was clear that people should check the instructions from the manufacturer before fitting a PLB, some of the other tips we provided were inappropriate. Our intention was to make sure that fishermen were fitting their PLBs correctly. We understand that the best advice we can give is advise people to contact either the manufacturer (or their approved servicing agent) of their PFDs and PLBs for support.

When we were alerted to this issue, we took immediate steps to remove the video from our YouTube channel and the two associated Twitter posts. We have published the advice on contacting manufacturers on our website. We are in the process of contacting the 144 fishing vessel owners who have purchased a PLB with support from the scheme to ensure they are aware of this advice and Seafish will cover the cost of getting their PFD and PLB serviced by an approved agent.  

We apologise for any confusion this video may have caused to fishermen over the short time it was live. The video had featured a Mullion lifejacket so we also offer our apologies to Mullion.

Keeping people safe on fishing vessels is hugely important to us and we will strive to keep doing everything we can to make the fishing industry safer.

Further information

Visit our PLB funding scheme page for more information on how to apply and who is elgible. 

Contacts

For more information on safety funding and this advice, contact Aoife Martin, Director of Operations.

For media enquiries, contact Denise Fraser, Head of Communications.