Today we will talk about MOB, the acronym for Man Over Board which literally means Man in the water and refers to the accidental fall into the sea of a person from a vessel. This type of incident is among the most frequent for those who work at sea for work, emergency, or sports activities.
Very often, as reported by the media, the outcomes are tragic, especially when falls into the sea or recovery operations occur at night or in rough sea conditions, etc. It can happen, in fact, that the person falls from the boat without being seen or that due to rough seas during a Search and Rescue operation the operator is pushed away from the support vessel. Over the years, various products have appeared on the market aimed at limiting the effects caused by this type of incident, such as PLB locators. Obviously, the technical differences between various products are many, but we can certainly distinguish them into large families: those with automatic activation and those with manual activation. The choice of one model over another depends on the type of activity carried out at sea. Among the manually activated products, among the latest arrivals on the market, we highlight the Retevis RM40 marine radio, ideal for those involved in rescue operations.
This device, which operates on the VHF band, in addition to its many features, is also equipped with DSC and MOB functions. Below is the link to the technical specifications (link). The Man Over Board (MOB) function marks and stores information about the position of a crew member who has fallen overboard, allowing rescue teams to return to that same position. The radio naturally has satellite reception so that once the MOB button is pressed, it is possible to save the position. The MOB function can only serve as a guide since the radio cannot calculate the effects of tide, current, and wind over time. When the MOB button is pressed, the GPS automatically marks a Waypoint at the current position and allows you to enable a "Go-To" navigation line to return to the initiated MOB position.
By pressing NAV on the radio, the function key activates the navigation screen to quickly navigate to the MOB position and thus recover the operator.
Activating the MOB function does not send an emergency call but instead allows you to record the position of the operator who has fallen overboard and thus facilitate SaR operations by the support naval unit.
The radio also allows, from the MOB screen, to send a DSC emergency call (digital selective call) if deemed necessary. With the DSC alarm function, the operator in the water can directly send their geographic position and alarm information to nearby ships or coastal radio stations, which can initiate the first rescue operations. These functions, designed especially for Rescue Swimmers engaged in rescue operations even during night hours, are also useful for military operators in critical operational scenarios and also in the commercial maritime or recreational boating sector.