A Pyro's Night Out

-- or how a bunch of adults got to shoot things and burn things and launch rockets without the kids knowing

Last night BYC had a "flare practice". One of our members (also in the Coast Guard Aux) had made previous arrangements for the Coast Guard to show up and help us launch some outdated pyrotechnics. It was an educational experience. Here's what I learned:

The Coasties are very young. (Duh) I can understand how some (impaired) yachtie might get belligerent when someone that young comes aboard and starts an inspection. It is still a stupid thing to do. They are law enforcement, they can fine you, and they carry guns. Better to show them their due respect. That said, I think they had as much fun as us; that or they were just laughing at a bunch of old pharts jumping up and down like 10 year olds shooting things. Some of them were just as unfamiliar with the variety of pyrotechnics on hand as us. But they read the directions first.

Almost everyone had the small Olin flare pistol (meteor). Six second burn time is not a lot of time. If you're not looking in the right direction, I'd be surprised if you didn't miss it. Several members had 25mm (various brand) pistols. They make an impressive pop and get much more height. It is now on my buy list. I'll put the small pistol in the bailout bag as a backup.

There were quite a few duds, especially if the stock was not kept perfectly dry. None of my stock failed, even though I fired shells that expired in '83, '89 and '90. The usual failure was a shorter trajectory, but some flares never lit. Some split in two on the way down.

Several women were a little more apprehensive about handling explosives than their male counterparts. A little practice helps -- by the end of the night everyone seemed much more comfortable. Having never lit off anything myself, before last night, I am much more confident of my ability to handle the beasties in an emergency.

You could immediately tell the difference between SOLAS and USCG approved standards. Higher, brighter longer, across the board. Buy SOLAS.

Skyblazers -- those little plastic hand launched meteor flares -- sucked. The failure rate was well over 2:1! I launched one that is "good" until October -- no problem. Others that expired in February didn't launch. Usually pulling the pin did nothing. One launched, but the propellant immediately died so we were dancing around trying to avoid a bright red fireball bouncing around the rocks. Not fun.

The rocket launched meteors were cool and loud (sounded like an old Estes model rocket).

Hand held smoke flares put out a lot of smoke. Much, much more useful as a day signal than any of the flares. Also on my buy list.

A lot of the Olin hand flares had wet strikers under the cap. (Worth an inspection, just pop off the black cap.) They would light after drying out a bit, but that's not really useful, is it? Storing flares in the cheap round Olin case seemed to be a bad idea. Tupperware, zip lock or some other dry box (I thought about tossing in some desecant packets) is a better choice. On the other hand my (last) 25 year old hand flare lit on the first try. So don't toss you old stuff either.

The parachute smoke flares worked well (lots of hang time, bright, etc), but all of them were very complicated to use. Review the instructions and if you get a chance to practice (at $30 a pop! yuck) do so. Ikaros seemed a bit easier to use than P-W.

No injuries, but there's a lot of flare slag on the rocks now.