Just a bit of twisting in that one.

Their response was to a question about what color was most easily found.
Their response, which I assume is valid where they operate, is that black
provides the best contrast, is the most notable color.  It has nothing to do
with the absence or presence of light.

When you write on white paper, do you use black ink or white ink?

Lee

I'm hoping you just forgot the smiley, *wink* or <sarcasm> comments?

David

During the war, Coastal Command experimented with "invisibility".  Placing a
line of lights along the leading edge of an aircraft wing effectively made
it invisible against the sky when coming straight at you.

The coastguard basically said the best thing to do was carry a personal
day/night flare.

Providing your skipper had a vague idea where he lost you, they could
estimate your current position with tide/wind plotting software and get a
helicopter near enough to see the smoke.  It's orange smoke, not black -
funny that ;-)

Or just get an epirb!

And, no, they won't use the software to tell you when slack is...

Paul

"Coastguard - "Black. The helicopter pilots say that, against a shiny green
North Sea, a dull matt black object really stands out"

Hi,

I find the above statement surprising.  As someone who, until last October,
has spent some 16 years flying the maritime Nimrod aircraft I believe that
there may have been some confusion in the re-telling.  The Nimrod MR2 crews
conduct SAR missions regularly though rarely, if ever, for lost divers - we
tend to cover incidents farther off-shore or that require the co-ordination
of a large number of helicopter assets closer to shore e.g Piper Alpha.  In
my, and others experience, the best colours are orange/bright yellow.  I
believe that the 'black is best' comment may be in relation to the spotting
of other aircraft - all aircraft (no matter what their paint scheme) appear
black at long range.  Whilst I appreciate the difference between airborne
and surface visibility, you don't see many black fishing/marker buoys and
these guys' livelihoods depend on it.

There may be some difference between the visibility from a helo and a Nimrod
as the helo will tend to fly lower and definitely slower.  A Nimrod
conducting a visual search for an individual in the water will typically fly
at around 500ft though this may be reduced to 200ft.  The problem with
flying at 200ft is that as we really can't, practically, fly much slower
than 200kts the surface goes by at a very rapid rate and the dwell time for
your eye on anything you spot is very small; the higher you are the longer
you can focus on one spot but the less likely you are to see the
object/person in the first place.  As with most things in life, it's a
compromise.

Electronic aids are good but expensive and can fail.  Helos, Nimrods and
lifeboats can all pick them up.  Don't underestimate the value of a
heliograph/mirror.  Given good sunlight (ah, there's the problem in the
UK!!!!!) these can be seen for many tens of miles.

Anyway, enough of my thoughts.  Dive safely.

Regards

Alan C