On Thursday members of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and the Manx Government will meet on Douglas Head to commemorate the birthday of founder Sir William Hillary, and also the introduction of a potentially life-saving new technology.

It's called the MOB Guardian System - MOB standing for 'Man Over Board'. Aimed primarily at small fishing boats, a transmitter on the vessel provides position and status reports to a shore station by satellite, and smaller devices carried by crew 'talk' to the master unit.

Normally costing almost two thousand pounds, the system is available heavily subsidised by the Manx Government and the RNLI and is being made available to local fishermen at just a hundred pounds plus VAT.

Staff Officer at the RNLI Peter Bradley explains how it works:



(Picture courtesy of manxscenes.com)