Max, some friends you know put on a "safety moment" during a recent Club cruise in the Chesapeake. After twilight, they went off in their dinghy and demonstrated one of the new electronic flares and then a generic USCG approved pyrotechnic equivalent (probably expired), and then a top-of-the-line SOLAS flare. The difference in brightness was sobering. They claim the new electronic ones are visible for 10 miles; it may be that one could see the flash at that distance, but I don't think anyone would mistake it for a distress signal. If I were just trying to be "legal," I would have these on board. But if I want someone to know that I am in trouble, I would still use the pyrotechnics, and certainly the SOLAS variety if offshore. What surprises me is that the technology exists to make an LED signal that is dangerously blinding (there is a display of them at Hamiltons), so it should be possible to create an electronic distress signal that is powerful enough to be useful. It is probably a matter of equipping the device with enough voltage to power the LED's, and that just may not exist yet. It likely will before long.