New SOS survival bag wins award

By LFTO News Team

Gear news

20 March 2008 11:31

A keen walker’s bright idea to create a survival bag with an integral SOS beacon will go into production after he won an international competition to design an innovative piece of outdoor gear.

John Lucas’ Beacon Bag won the Alpkit International Innovation Award last weekend at the Ordnance Survey Outdoors Show.

His design combines an insulated and waterproof survival bag with an SOS beacon so walkers can get shelter and some shut-eye whilst still signalling for help.

British gear manufacturer Alpkit launched the competition in November 2007 and an exhaustive selection process whittled the competing ideas to a shortlist of 10, which were on display at the Outdoors Show. 40,000 show visitors then voted to elect the winner.

The runner-up was the Linelight, created by Derek Horner who travelled from Denmark to show off his invention. The Linelight consists of an LED rope-light inside a plastic tube and has numerous applications. It can be used as a standard torch, or taken out of its casing and spread across a large area to illuminate tasks such as cooking or reading, or alternatively swung above your head to call for help.

Alpkit will now put the Beacon Bag into production, and more of the shortlisted contenders are likely to be manufactured as well.

Trail’s technical editor Graham Thomson presented the award, and said: “It is superb to see someone encouraging innovation in the outdoor industry, as there is very little to be seen at times. I look forward to this award growing and developing over the years and hopefully some of the winners will go on to develop their ideas so we can use them in the outdoors.”


See more of the entries.