From the report on this accident by US Sailing.
http://offshore.ussailing.org/AssetF...aspx?vid=19623

My summary of the excerpts included below:

Spot Distress Message sent at 0143 PDT. Spot message DID NOT include a position fix. Distress message was relayed to US Coast Guard at 1120 PDT. Elapsed time 11 hours and 37 minutes.

Spot failed to transmit a position fix with the distress signal, so GEOS did not contact SARS. As Darryl pointed out, there are technical reasons why the transmission of the position fix (aka GPS position) by a PLB is more reliable than SPOT.

Excerpt:
Page 9

"A manually activated 911 message was received by GEOS via the SPOT Connect
at 0143 PDT on April 28. This transmission identified the SPOT Connect as belonging to
the skipper, but did not contain a position fix. Two voice messages were left with the
skipper's wife (Loren Mavromati) at 0144 PDT and 0145 PDT. (Shown in the call log in
Appendix 19) These messages included the time of the receipt of the information in UTC
(local time plus 7 hours), which may have lead to some initial confusion as to the time of
the emergency message. At 0901 PDT on April 28, Loren Mavromati called the race
organizers at NOSA and left a voice message identifying that a 911 had been sent and
she had been contacted by GEOS. NOSA Administrative team member, Judy Foster,
retrieved the voice message from Mrs. Mavromati at 0929 PDT. Foster contacted Toby
Jackson at NOSA Race Operations in Ensenada, Mexico at 0935 PDT. At 1100 PDT
Jackson relayed the information to PRO Mark Townsend. At 1114 PDT NOSA Race
official Joseph Baiunco contacted Loren Mavromati from Race Operations in Ensenada
to confirm the information about the 911 report from GEOS. The information of the
SPOT Connect 911 transmission was relayed to the US Coast Guard - Sector San Diego
by NOSA official Jerry Schandera at 1120 PDT on April 28, 2012. The USCG contacted
Loren Mavromati upon receipt of this information. "


Excerpted Geos call log from same report:

"Appendix 19
GEOS CALL LOG

0843 GMT 911 EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION RECEIVED. Call placed in pending. No GPS
coordinates received.
0844 GMT IERCC attempted to contact registered owner XXXX XXXXX at XXXiiiXXXiii
XXXX. Left Voicemail.
0845 GMT IERCC attempted to contact registered owner XXXX XXXXX at XXXiiiXXXiii
XXXX. Left Voicemail.
0847 GMT IERCC attempted to contact primary emergency contact XXXX XXXXX at XXXi
iiXXXiiiXXXX. Left Voicemail.
0849 GMT IERCC attempted to contact secondary emergency contact XXXX XXXXX at XX
XiiiXXXiiiXXXX. Left Voicemail. "


So if the skipper had used a PLB/EPIRB instead of a SPOT/GEOS, would things have turned out differently?

Excerpted from same report (Appendix 8):
"6. EPIRB signal goes directly to RCC centers who control the SAR resources, SPOT adds an
additional step (GEOS) adding the increased possibility of delay and human failure
7. USCG RCC assumes an EPIRB signal is positive until proven false. Upon receipt of a located
alert, the Coast Guard will start the process to deploy SAR assets to that known
position. These assets have 30 minutes (some are much quicker to get underway than
others, and many take much less than 30 min to get underway) to get underway to the
position, (and for the USCG it is viewed as easier to recall the assets rather than wishing
you had sent them out earlier). While the SAR asset is preparing to get underway, the SAR
controller attempts to gather more information about the alert (calling emergency contact
in the registration data base, perhaps having local police knock on doors if no answer at
contact or checking with marina, or looking at websites/blogs or doing other detective
work) If the alert is determined to be non distress, the asset is stood down or recalled. If
the received alert is unlocated but registered, the Coast Guard works with the emergency
contact provided in the registration database to narrow down a search area. Once a
reasonable search area has been determined, rescue assets are deployed. If the distress
alert is unlocated and unregistered, the Coast Guard will continue to evaluate and
monitor. Additional satellite passes may be needed to determine a location so that an
effective search area can be developed. While SPOT/GEOS has a narrower
commercial/profit mandate (to call the emergency contact, and if there is a lat/long in the
SOS signal to call the SAR/USCG). GEOS will continue to monitor an SOS signal until they
get location data that they can forward to the USCG/SAR.
8. The EPIRB communication protocol is technically more robust and less likely to have
dropped messages. You can see in the SPOT track that it regularly drops messages they
should be every 10 minutes but are not when a message gets dropped. "