Mayday calls - where is that exactly?

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

If you're in the US, most pleasure craft are not required to have a VHF. But if you do have one, you're required to monitor channel 16 whenever you're not using the VHF for something else. https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/radio-wa...ng-regulations

Not if you have DSC.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Largely superseded. Vessels with DSC do not have to maintain a listening watch

That's true for GMDSS vessels, but none of the rules I've seen indicate that DSC supersedes a VHF 16 watch for any non-GMDSS vessel.

[dannc]

Originally Posted by JBP

I suppose. A lot of those calls come from someone on shore who saw someone on the lake and uses the local nickname. If I'm not at my home turf, I don't know the local nicknames. The CG could ask the caller the nearest city.

Agreed. The wifey and I were out in our sea kayaks on the Inter Coastal Waterway once upon a time and there was some strong winds. Going east was easy since the wind was behind us. Going back west, well, that was a bit of work. Instead of the usual 3-4 mph, we were at best doing 1 mph.

We took a break on a little sand bar. On the mainland we saw a sheriff deputy stop and watch us for a bit before leaving. I guess some one called 911 and said we were in distress. We were not but it is better to be safe than sorry.

Now, sometime in the next day or so, I went out at the end of the day, and as the sun went down, the biting armada of huge mosquitoes emerged from the marsh and attacked. If I could stay at 4-5 mph, I could escape most of them, but by the time I go the kayak out of the water and into the house, almost every bit of exposed skin on my was bitten. I was in distress then.

Later,
Dan

[StuM]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

True but under gmdss
“1-1 Contracting Governments shall co-ordinate and co-operate to ensure that masters of ships providing assistance by embarking persons in distress at sea are released from their obligations with minimum further deviation from the ships' intended voyage, provided that releasing the master of the ship from the obligations under the current regulation “

So before rushing , you make contact and may be released from your undertaking to aid.

The way I read that, it has nothing to do with going to aid a vessel in distress.

It just says that once you have "embarked persons in distress" (i.e. taken then on board), you don't have to take them anywhere other than your original destination.

[skipperpete]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

True but under gmdss
“1-1 Contracting Governments shall co-ordinate and co-operate to ensure that masters of ships providing assistance by embarking persons in distress at sea are released from their obligations with minimum further deviation from the ships' intended voyage, provided that releasing the master of the ship from the obligations under the current regulation “

So before rushing , you make contact and may be released from your undertaking to aid.

The MV Tampa incident 20 years ago in the Indian Ocean and the recent and ongoing punishment ( de registration) of vessels and crew rescuing refugees in the Mediterranean raises issues regarding the Mayday response. I’ve been directly involved in one Mayday call off Seal rocks in NSW and in another further up the NSW coast in a full storm. The first was a MOB in very rough seas and the second was in 1985 from a catamaran called “Rush” that seemed to have broken in two. The MOB was never found and in an attempt to rescue the “Rush”crew with a helicopter one crew member was killed and the rescue abandoned with the remaining crew rescued later by a Japanese cargo ship with an amazing display of seamanship and skill. Our bridge crew took a video of the sea state and wreckage but were unable to assist.

[B25Matt]

There are a number of things I could do in the cockpit to decode a coat guard issued mayday call. However in this day and age with GPS and chart plotters we now navigate completely differently than we used to. There is no requirement to monitor your lat/lon, nor know that 1 degree of longitude is 60*cos(lat) nm. You can bemoan that fact but it's not going to change things. The world has changed. We can now navigate to somewhere with 2 meters of accuracy and still not know where we are.

It's not fair to put the full burden on the receivers of these calls. The coast guard can and should do more to make mayday calls easier to discern the geographic area of concern. That's part of their job is it not?

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

That's true for GMDSS vessels, but none of the rules I've seen indicate that DSC supersedes a VHF 16 watch for any non-GMDSS vessel.

What’s a non GMDSS vessel ? There are non compulsory GMDSS fit vessels like pleasure craft , but there is no such thing as non GMDSS.

Once you have a DSC vhf , you are relived of a radio watch

[carstenb]

Originally Posted by clownfishsydney

When they give out a Securite about it, they never, ever say where the geographical location is, just a quick statement of lat/long, repeated so quickly even I (with a pen and paper at hand) sometimes cannot write it down. .

This is my pet peeve. When USCG comes up on our VHF they rattle off whatever they are saying so quickly that even I ( a native american speaker) can't follow it. My wife (english is her second language - but she is completely fluent) just shakes her head and asks if I caught it.

When we took our long range radio certificates, we were taught that we should endeavor to speak slowly and clearly. This is especially true if english is not the native language of anyone listening.

We've been at sea for almost 7 years - Most CG's do speak slowly and clearly. USCG, almost invariably speedspeak and are unintelligible.

And before everyone climbs all over me - I have the greatest respect for CGs all over the world, including USCG - but that respect doesn't mean they can't be constructively criticized.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by carstenb

This is my pet peeve. When USCG comes up on our VHF they rattle off whatever they are saying so quickly that even I ( a native american speaker) can't follow it. My wife (english is her second language - but she is completely fluent) just shakes her head and asks if I caught it.



When we took our long range radio certificates, we were taught that we should endeavor to speak slowly and clearly. This is especially true if english is not the native language of anyone listening.



We've been at sea for almost 7 years - Most CG's do speak slowly and clearly. USCG, almost invariably speedspeak and are unintelligible.



And before everyone climbs all over me - I have the greatest respect for CGs all over the world, including USCG - but that respect doesn't mean they can't be constructively criticized.

You should try it when it’s in fast heavily accented broken English !!! Like Olympia Radio

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

What’s a non GMDSS vessel ? There are non compulsory GMDSS fit vessels like pleasure craft , but there is no such thing as non GMDSS.

Once you have a DSC vhf , you are relived of a radio watch

Yes, I'm referring to vessels that are not required to comply with GMDSS. However, at least in the US, there is nothing that exempts a pleasure craft from a VHF 16 watch even if they have DSC.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

Yes, I'm referring to vessels that are not required to comply with GMDSS. However, at least in the US, there is nothing that exempts a pleasure craft from a VHF 16 watch even if they have DSC.

As was said the us is party to the ITU IMO GMDSS process therefore that’s excerpts DSC fitted radio from a vhf 16 listening watch

The vhf16 watch was extended at the imo but has now been superceeded by a continuous watch on ch70 which forced vhf class D to be legal and rendered the older ones redundant

The requirement for continuous watch is now handled by class D vhf ch 70 monitoring this Meets the obligations under SOLAS

[goboatingnow]

§80.1123 Watch requirements for ship stations.
(a) While at sea, all ships must main- tain a continuous watch:
(1) On VHF DSC channel 70, if the ship is fitted with a VHF radio instal- lation in accordance with §80.1085(a)(2);

Fcc

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...sec80-1123.pdf

[Be Free]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

§80.1123 Watch requirements for ship stations.
(a) While at sea, all ships must main- tain a continuous watch:
(1) On VHF DSC channel 70, if the ship is fitted with a VHF radio instal- lation in accordance with §80.1085(a)(2);

Fcc

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...sec80-1123.pdf

US law. Only applies to passenger ships carrying more than 12 passengers or cargo ships.

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by B25Matt

...It's not fair to put the full burden on the receivers of these calls. The coast guard can and should do more to make mayday calls easier to discern the geographic area of concern...

I would love to figure out a better way. Most calls I hear on the US East Coast do include a geographical reference. That's a good start. Even better would be a technological solution, so the position of the distress came up on my chart plotter. Maybe AIS could be used for this?

Originally Posted by carstenb

This is my pet peeve. When USCG comes up on our VHF they rattle off whatever they are saying so quickly that even I ( a native american speaker) can't follow it. My wife (english is her second language - but she is completely fluent) just shakes her head and asks if I caught it...

My wife, a native-born American English speaker, does the same.

Usually, I can translate. I know the cadence and the basic format of their comms, so I just have to listen for the blanks where they insert variables.

Where I struggle is when the CG radio watchstander is a non-native (and sometimes, not even very good) English speaker. We had one at our local station. Nice enough kid, but it always worried me that someone was going to get hurt some day because of the incomprehensible comms. Luckily they "graduate" from radio watch to other roles fairly quickly.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Be Free

US law. Only applies to passenger ships carrying more than 12 passengers or cargo ships.

Yes agreed private pleasure vessels fall outside the listening watch scope anyway