From: Mario Vittone –
First of all, thanks for reading this. This is a “sponsored post” and you know you are about to be pitched but you are reading anyway. I appreciate that. For my part, I’ll try to add value to this …ad and make it worth your while.
Some of you may know me; most of you don’t; but if you’ve been reading gCaptain for the last ten years, you’ve probably read some of my thoughts here on safety at sea. It’s been a while (2015 after the El Faro accident) since you’ve heard from me and that’s because I’ve been busy working the last job I’m ever going to have: I’m the General Manager of Lifesaving Systems Corp and the job is an honor. LSC is a forty-year-old company that manufactures most of the helicopter and maritime rescue equipment used by the United States military.
We also make equipment for organizations working on every continent (including Antarctica). Our gear is used in so many operations around the world that every hour of every day someone is out there on a sea or an ocean using something we made to save a life. It is an easy place to be proud of.
Five years ago, when I took this job, the company founder, Sam Maness, shared his belief that the rescue professionals of the world deserve the absolute best gear that can be made and that we should make it for them. “Really, if we don’t make it they should get it from somewhere. They deserve it,” he said. I agreed, but I also thought about you – all of the professional mariners out there, working hard every day on the waters of the world; who was making the best gear for them?
We’ve been working on that question for a few years now, asking ourselves what in the world of maritime rescue and survival gear needed to be fixed. What needed to be better? The first thing we came up with (no kidding) was your floating electric marker lights. That’s right, those strobes that hang next to your life rings. The problem was they were either too big, too cheaply made, or they required special batteries that were hard to find. They desperately needed an upgrade.
We fixed all of that by creating the brightest, longest lasting, most easily maintained Floating Marker Light in the world.
The FML-7 Light uses standard D-cell batteries, is USCG/SOLAS/MED approved for use all over the world, and is built to last and be repaired instead of replaced. They cost less and last longer than what’s available to you now and they are the best possible gear for the job.
We also make the best heaving lines; the best throwline bags; rain gear; boat safety belts, MOB retrieval straps for your fast rescue boats, all the seemingly small things that you need to get the tough jobs one out there.
We make lots of things at LSC that are perfect for you and I hope you take the time to have a look. Myself, Sam, and the rest of the team have been making gear useful to your world of work; designed for professionals, put together by hand, and shipping now to mariners all over the world. It is the best possible gear we can make, and you deserve it.