Radio: channel 16, Mayday, Pan-Pan

Your own Mayday card

Enter your boat's details. Below them the distress call appears with your data, exactly as you would say it. Print the card and keep it by the radio: in an emergency you only have to add the position, the nature of distress and the help you need.

Marine VHF radio on board: the set, MMSI and first steps

A marine VHF set is the most important tool on board for summoning help. Unlike a phone, it reaches every station in range at once: coastguard, rescue coordination centres and nearby vessels. That is why you hear traffic at sea that has nothing to do with you, and it is exactly what makes VHF so valuable.

For the distress button to work, the set needs its own identity number, the MMSI. It has nine digits and in the UK is issued with the Ofcom Ship Radio Licence. The set must also be connected to a GPS or have one built in, or the distress alert will go out without a position.

Get to know the set before you leave: where the distress button is, how to change channel, how to set the squelch and whether you can hear the speaker over the wind on deck. Five minutes with the handbook in harbour saves precious seconds when it matters.

Channel 16 and channel 70: listening, calling, switching

Channel 16 is the international voice channel for distress, urgency, safety and calling. Keep a listening watch on it whenever you are underway. For anything more than a brief exchange, move to a working channel after the initial call so that 16 stays clear. Radio checks do not belong on 16.

Channel 70 is reserved for digital selective calling, DSC. Nobody speaks on it. Your set watches it automatically and alerts you when a distress alert or individual call comes in. You never select it to talk.

Keep it short. Decide what you want to say before you press the transmit button, speak slowly and clearly, and release the button when you have finished, or you block the channel for everyone else.

The Mayday call under GMDSS, word by word

Mayday is reserved for grave and imminent danger to a vessel or to life, such as fire, flooding you cannot control or someone overboard. Under the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System, GMDSS, it starts with a DSC distress alert and continues straight away with a voice call on channel 16.

To send the alert, lift the cover on the red distress button and hold it for a few seconds until the set transmits. It then switches to channel 16. Follow with the spoken distress call and, without pausing, the distress message. If nobody answers, repeat it at intervals.

1. MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY
2. THIS IS, vessel name three times, call sign, MMSI
3. MAYDAY, vessel name, call sign, MMSI
4. Position, as latitude and longitude or as a bearing and distance from a known point
5. Nature of distress
6. Assistance required
7. Number of persons on board
8. Any other useful information, such as abandoning to the liferaft
9. OVER

Pan-Pan, Sécurité and radio silence

Pan-Pan is the urgency signal. Use it when the vessel or someone aboard needs help but there is no immediate danger to life: a steering failure off a lee shore, for example, or an injured crew member needing medical advice. The shape: PAN-PAN three times, ALL STATIONS three times, THIS IS, vessel name three times with call sign and MMSI, then position, the problem, the help needed and OVER.

Sécurité announces a safety message, such as a floating hazard, an unlit buoy or a gale warning. It is announced on channel 16, and the message itself usually follows on a working channel to keep 16 free.

During a distress, the vessel in distress or the station in control can impose silence with SEELONCE MAYDAY. Nobody who is not involved in the rescue may then transmit on that channel. SEELONCE FEENEE lifts it. If you hear a Mayday that nobody answers, write down position and details. If no coastguard station responds after a short time, acknowledge it and pass it on as a MAYDAY RELAY.

The SRC radio licence and what you need to operate

Anyone operating a marine VHF needs the right operator's certificate. For VHF at sea that is the Short Range Certificate, SRC, which covers voice procedure, DSC and GMDSS routines. In the UK the course and exam are run through the RYA, and you also need a Ship Radio Licence for the boat, or a Ship Portable Radio Licence for a handheld.

For ocean passages beyond VHF range there is the Long Range Certificate, which adds MF, HF and satellite communications. For most coastal cruising the SRC is enough.

Sailing abroad, check the rules of the country you are visiting. Inland waterways in parts of Europe, for example, use their own procedures and require ATIS, an automatic transmitter identification, with DSC switched off. Make sure the set is configured correctly for where you are.

Frequently asked questions