We (young couple with baby and toddler) have just purchased a Moody 425 and plan to sail her back to Australia eventually. The next year or two we will spend in the Med. On our web search for buying a new EPIRB (almost the same cost as servicing the old one, plus a new one has GPS - very important to us!) we came across many heated discussions on PLB vs EPIRB. The former has the advantage of being hooked onto the lifejacket, so for short-handed and night sailing it sounds like it 'd be the best option. EPIRBs, however, have the advantage of longer transmission time. And someone also mentioned a combined EPIRB/VHF DSC alert gadget as a future possibility in a 2010 thread, calling it VPIRB... Does anyone know if such gadget exists now? and/or have any other advice/opinion on this subject? The ones I have found online are not linked to SARSAT (although some companies play on the name and misleading diagrams to make one believe they would...). Thanks.