8 Steps for Making and Emergency Call

By: Mike Saylor, Soundings October 2003

“”Mayday, I’m lost and my GPS is not working; I need help.  Somebody, Coast Guard, help me. Can anybody help me? I’ve got to get home. Someone help.”

There is a right way and a wrong way to call for help. That was the wrong way.  The first step if you’re asking for help is to stop broadcasting so someone can respond.

There are three priority calls that can be broadcast on VHF channel 16: mayday, pan and security.   These preambles to messages are meant to alert all vessels monitoring channel 16.  And every vessel should monitor channel 16 as part of its scanning setup.  In descending order of priority.

MAYDAY – This is an emergency call denoting the highest level of distress when life or property is an imminent risk.  It should only be used in situations of serious injury or illness, cases where the risk of death or loss of the vessel is a real possibility in the immediate or near future.

PAN (pronounced pawn) -  This is used when there is the possibility of risk to health safety of people or property, but the risk is not immediate and not necessarily life threatening.  For example, the boat has lost power and is drifting, but it can deploy an anchor to stay off the rocks.  Someone is injured but isn’t at risk of dying.  A fire on board that is out of control could be a mayday situation.  A broken prop could, under some circumstances, be a pan.

SECURITY (pronounced say-cu-ri-tay) – This involved messages relating to safety and traffic.  Spotting a serious hazard to navigation or notification of a large vessel (a ship) leaving its berth or entering a heavily trafficked area justifies a security call.

To make one of these call if becomes necessary:

1. Check for traffic on channel 16.  Pressing the push-to-talk button say, “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is (your boat’s name)” three times.
2. Say, “Mayday, this is (your boat’s name)” again once.
3. Give you boat’s position in latitude/longitude, or by giving the magnetic bearing to a readily identifiable object, a landmark or an aid to navigation.  Latitude/longitude is the best, most precise description of your position.  This is a good reason to have GPS.
4. Define the nature of your distress.  Are you sinking, on fire, aground, or is someone suffering a heart attack or other life threatening condition?  Are you abandoning the boat?  Do you need, pumps, firefighting equipment, medical support, in-water rescue?
5. Tell how many are on board.
6. Estimate how much time your boat has left.
7. Describe your boat: length, type, color, anything that can help distinguish it.
8. Say, “Over,” release the push-to-talk button and listen for a response.  If you don’t get a response, wait a minute or so, go to high power, and repeat the call.  The message shouldn’t take more than a minute to transmit.

The same procedure is used for pan and security calls, whichever is appropriate to the situation.

VHF radios with DSC (digital selective calling)

             DSC-capable radios with a marine mobile service identifier (MMSI) code can connect to a GPS with NMEA 0183 version 2.0 protocol.  To make a call when in an mayday situation only and when immediate help is required:

• Check to see if a distress call is being received.
• Uncover the distress button and press it for five seconds.

The radio will automatically switch to channel 70, the emergency channel for DSC, and transmit an all-ships alert that will include your latitude/longitude and time.  You can enter the nature of the distress from a menu of options on most models.  Check the owner’s manual.  The transmissions take about five seconds.  If no acknowledgement is received, the radio automatically repeats the transmission in less than a minute.  When the reply is received the transceiver switches to channel 16 for voice communications.

      Pan calls use channel 70 and can provide distress descriptors and position without pressing the red distress button.  Manufactures have different methods of activating non-mayday transmissions.  Some recent GPS chart plotters have the ability to plot the position of the distressed vessel.