New boat - old flares - how old were yours?

[jarcher]

The flares on my new 1977 Scampi expired in - get this - 1985! January of 1985! Is this a record?

How old were the flares on your boat when you bought it?

[rheaton]

Buy new flares and keep old one as spares.

[jarcher]

Originally Posted by rheaton

Buy new flares and keep old one as spares.

Maybe if they were not quite that old, but these are over the top. I just thought it was funny.

[sailingdog]

If they're SOLAS-grade flares, they might be fine for backups... I would carry in-date flares as well, and highly recommend you go with only SOLAS grade flares, as they're much more visible and safer than USCG flares IMHO.

[blt2ski]

My 85 had flares that were "bought" in 85 from what I can tell. I forget what the actual expiration date was. Come to think of it, I should look at current flares and see how they are faring. IIRC 3 yrs before expiring?

Marty

[eMKay]

My boat had flares about that old, and they were wet.

[Brezzin]

If your looking to dispose of old flares, contact your local Power Squadron. They occasionally collect old flares and use them in a "how to" type of class and cook them off. Although the squadron I was part of accepted nothing over 10 yrs old.
Regarding twenty year old flares I would get them off my boat. although I don't think they pose any threat regarding unintentional firing, I wouldn't want to light one off. They have a life span for a reason.

[vega1860]

I just cleaned out all of the old flares from my boat and bought a fancy new flare kit in a valise along with new PFDs and mounted them and the flare kit under the cockpit locker lids to impress the Coasties next time I'm inspected.

I had kept the flares the boat came with and, bought new as needed for my annual inspections, never discarding the old ones. I figured they would be good as backups.

The oldest flares on the boat expired in 1968! Six years before the boat was built.

[meuritt]

I just bought a boat that the previous owner bought in 1999, all the safety gear, flares included, were dated 1999 and have not been out of the wrapper. He talked proudly about having a boarding ladder that reached the water, when i tried to hang it, it didn't fit the installed brackets... among many other things. nice security.

[SVDistantStar]

My boat didnt come with flares when i bought it. On the other hand, when cleaning out my granddads old Glastron 18' ski boat i found a flare kit that came with the boat when it was new, in 1964.