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VHF Radio Mayday, Southeastern Alaska

The Sandy M., a commercial fishing vessel working the waters of the southeastern Alaska panhandle, is taking on water and issues a pan-pan to the Coast Guard. Her pumps are keeping up with the incoming water, but the Coast Guard wants the vessel's precise location nonetheless. The captain responds with gps coordinates.

This is a useful vhf radio channel 16 transmission. The captain remains calm and collected, conveys his information clearly, and has his position coordinates at hand. Matters soon turned for the worst. The boat sank.

A Sitka-based Coast Guard helicopter crew was diverted from a community relations mission and arrived on-scene in about 40 minutes to find three of the crew members in a life boat and two in the water, amid 40 mph winds and 6- to 8-foot seas.

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Roz Savage

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Above: Roz Savage, record-breaker who has crossed both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans solo under oars. The former hard-charging consultant has written a book and now makes her living as a writer, environmentalist and motivational speaker.

The audio selection below is of her rescue by a Humboldt Bay, California Coast Guard crew when, during her first attempt to cross the Pacific, she lost her sea anchor and use of her gps.

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You Overhear a Pan-Pan Call on Channel 16…Now What?

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Captain Joe: Mayday

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When a Mayday Call Goes Unanswered

Sometimes mayday calls on channel 16 are too weak or garbled for the Coast Guard  to pick up.

In situations like those, oftentimes  we can depend upon another vhf radio use to act as a broadcast relay. They can relay to the Coast Guard information we can't broadcast successfully.

In this recording, a large passenger ferry with 150 on board has broadcast a mayday call. There's a fire in the engine room.

Their call goes unanswered, at first. But personnel at a dam pick up the call and try relay it to the Coast Guard via channel 16 - that channel we all know as one to use for mayday calls.

As you listen in, you'll hear dam personnel and the Coast Guard vhf watchstander trying to get the facts straight. There's a considerable amount of confusion. The Coast Guard watchstander seems taken aback that the dam control station is calling. The dam personnel caller seems frustrated that he can't get his point across.

There's a lot we as sea kayakers can learn from the recording. Our vhf radios have low watt outputs: from 2.5 to 5.0. Their antennas are small, our kayaks are low to the water. So sometimes reaching the Coast Guard in an emergency can be difficult. Our radios simply don't have the power or height to do the job.

So what's this  say to us as kayakers? Maybe someday you'll hear an unanswered mayday or other  call on channel 16. Maybe you are the only boat within range to answer and possibly relay the call. Feel free to answer and offer what assistance you can...anything from taking careful note of the caller's position to relay their message to possible. Or even coming to their aid in your own fast and narrow, able craft.

And finally, should your own mayday or other urgency call go unanswered, hope that another nearby boater will break in to pass your message along to whoever needs to receive it.

Case in point. A few years back, while kayaking in the northeast US, the owner of a kayak ramp made it clear to us that if our party didn't return on our stated day from a kayak camping trip, he would notify the Coast Guard that we were overdue. In other words, if we couldn't follow the timetable we stated on our float plan, he'd assume something had gone wrong.

Well, the weather soon turned quite bad -- heavy winds, rain, large breaking waves chop -- and we were pinned down on a windswept island. We were going to be a day or two overdue.

I tried to raise the ramp owner on my vhf. After calling him six or seven times without success, a sailboat several miles distant responded. He offered to provide communications assistance. With a masthead antenna 50 feet above water, his broadcast range was far greater than mine. He raised the ramp owner and relayed our one- or two-day delay message. He also relayed back to me that the ramp owner got our message.

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How to Use a VHF Radio: Describe your Location and Situation

Boaters (and sea kayakers, for that matter) are not in critical trouble but with problems they can survive often call TowBoat US for assistance on a portable handheld vhf radio. The radio calls are typi ally made on channel 16, which the Coast Guard monitors.

Listen in as a boat near Portsmouth, New Hampshire, gateway to the Isles of Shoals, calls on his vhf radio the commercial tow service TowBoat US for assistance. A local Coast Guard station immediatley breaks in to take command of the call.

Key to the call are that the skipper is able to identify his location both by a navigational aid (bouy 2KR) and coordinates.

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When the Coast Guard Answers: How to Use a VHF Radio

From Sea Kayaking Dot Net's collection of vhf radio usage files

One key element to making any kind of distress call on a vhf radio is to be sure you can give your location. Otherwise any possible rescue operation becomes that much more time consumig.

In this vhf radio call, a powerboater off the coast of New England issues channel 16 call to TowBoat US. The boat is taking on water near a local bouy known as 2KR.

Because the captain makes his call made on vhf radio emergency channel 16, a nearby Coast Guard vhf watchstander breaks in.

What we as vhf radio users can learn from the recording is how the Coast Guard handles emergency and pan-pan calls. They will immediatley want immediately to know where you are. Once they assess your situation, they'll either come get you or will offer to call a tow service.

Incidentally, there are some very good deals out there on handheld submersible vhf radios. Amazon is selling Standard HX600s submersibles for $199.00. There's also some good deals on Icom M34 Submersibles.

For additional related content, see Sea Kayaking Dot Net

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