Mayday heard today

[Jammer]

20 knot winds on Lake Pepin today, white caps. My boat has been hauled for the season and I was in the marina office chatting about a friend's Montgomery with a stuck centerboard. The office monitors 16. Here's what I heard. The marina involved isn't the one I use:


Boat: Mayday, mayday, mayday, [redacted] marina.

[Redacted] marina: Go to channel six eight.

[short delay]

USCG: Vessel in distress, please state your location and the nature of your emergency.

[silence]

USCG: [additional unanswered calls to vessel in distress, which we assume is now over on 68 trying to figure out their problems by talking to the marina]

USCG: Pan-pan, pan-pan, pan-pan, all stations, all stations, all stations ... [request to forward any information or communications with vessel in distress]

[other boats]: Start responding with reception reports


A few minutes later the boat solved whatever their problem was and the USCG figured that out one way or another. I had left the office and walked back to my boat (on the hard) and monitored 16 and 68 but only got part of the picture by then.

Key takeaways for me:

• Most people with boats have zero radio discipline or understanding of the way distress communications are supposed to work. First mistake was either you call the marina or you call mayday but you can't do both at once.
• Marina operators who should know better do dumb things out of habit. The [redacted] marina routinely sends people from 16 to 68, as they should, but why would they suggest it during a distress situation?
• USCG gets a gold star for professionalism and trying to get it right. I assume they deal with quite a number of iffy distress calls like this.
• The Rescue 21 antenna can't pick up transmissions from the [redacted] marina.

The guy I was talking to at the office was nonplussed and said it isn't unusual for people to get panicky and call mayday when the weather and waves are bad.

[Chotu]

Or you could do what I did last year.

I lost steering and was in the path of a ferry that expected me to move. I was under full sail and unable to alter course.

I went to call a securite to the ferry but in my haste trying to manage the steering failure, imminent collision, not getting knocked down, getting the radio out, etc... I ended up saying pan pan instead of securite.

Coast guard comes up and tries to get my position to keep an eye on a pan pan when it wasn’t needed. I was soo embarrassed!

I limped my way into a harbor an hour later and they were immediately like “were you the guy that almost hit hit by the ferry and called a pan pan? “

I had to admit it was me. Quite embarrassing.

Radio stuff can definitely go unexpectedly wrong.