Sea kayaking’s real risk isn’t distance: it’s a capsize in cold water, with minutes to sort it out. VesselSOS gives you a trip plan someone actually watches: a live link ashore, and an SOS screen with your position in words, a MAYDAY text and a one-tap 999 call, so you can ask for the Coastguard.
UK waters stay cold well into summer. If you go over and can’t get back in, the clock is short, and the person who raises the alarm will be the one ashore. With a live link they see your dot stop in open water and know it’s time, instead of finding out at dusk that you never came back.
A plan left with someone ashore fails the moment plans change. The live link is the plan: your actual position, course and battery, in any browser, no app for the watcher. Set a return time too: if you’re late and don’t answer the app’s “Are you OK?”, your Emergency and Live contacts get an automatic SMS with the link. It never alerts the Coastguard; they decide whether to call 999. More on the tracking page.
From a swamped cockpit you won’t use a VHF you don’t carry. The SOS screen opens on your coordinates, spelled out so you can read them to the 999 operator and the Coastguard, and the ready-made text to your people (one tap to open, then Send) gets through on coverage too weak for data. GPS itself needs no signal at all.
Skills first: a buoyancy aid you actually wear, a re-entry you’ve practised, and judgement about the forecast and the tide. VesselSOS is an aid, not a rescue service: in immediate danger, call 999 or 112 and ask for the Coastguard, or use VHF channel 16 if you carry a radio.
Your position, the MAYDAY text and your craft details work fully offline. Calls and texts need a mobile signal; a text often gets through where data has already dropped. Positions recorded without signal are sent when coverage returns.
Yes. Each paddler shares their own link, and the shore contact sees the whole group side by side in browser tabs.
Tracking runs only during a trip. At the default 30-second interval we estimate about 4% battery an hour; choose 1 or 5 minutes for long days, and below 20% it drops to every 5 minutes on its own. The watcher sees your battery level.