Coastguard and DSC

[lustyd]

Just had a weird situation even for our modern coastguard.
Vessel calls on 16 asking for help, I won’t go into detail but they did not say mayday or imply it, they asked for help so at most it was a pan pan.
For no apparent reason CG escalates to mayday despite no danger to life. A boat helps out and the situation is resolved.

So far so good I guess, CG upped their stats for maydays and will get funding.

What happened next was bizarre. Usually the CG does an info update on maydays but this time the CG initiated a DSC distress alert to do so. Not only does this seem wrong and against guidelines but it certainly makes me think twice about having DSC enabled. If you look at my past posts I’m a strong believer that DSC is a good thing but if it’s on I cannot tune out distress alerts without making it pointless. I already have information alerts silenced because I don’t need them.

Are they correct in using distress for a post emergency update?

 

[Mister E]

Someone who didn't know how own to use the vhf maybe an 8 year old needed help.
So to me all the normal rules are gone.

 

[justanothersailboat]

Mister E - not sure I understand how any oddity in the original call could justify CG initiating a distress alert after the situation is resolved? I can't think of a better way to condition people to not take alerts seriously, than to trigger extra spurious ones...

 

[Mark-1]

Someone who didn't know how own to use the vhf maybe an 8 year old needed help.
So to me all the normal rules are gone.

Sounds like you have some extra information that wasn't in the OP?

 

[ylop]

Without more details of the issue, location, any prior knowledge the CG have of the vessel/occupants or any additional calls or information they received (I’ve heard poor quality comms where the CG ask the caller to dial 999) then it’s guesswork whether the CG over reacted.

Closing a call with a distress alert would be very odd, but a DSC All Stations Broadcast to end the distress status would not. Perhaps someone just pressed the wrong button.

 

[lustyd]

There was no issue with reception, the issue was in Portsmouth Harbour.
The coastguard did the same thing multiple times that day so not a mistake. It was definitely distress, no other DSC alert causes an alarm on my boat as I only want to be alerted in an emergency.

 

[RivalRedwing]

They probably have a target for DSC distress alerts

 

[Stemar]

When I hear a mayday incident over the radio, the CG tends to out a DSC alert for every transmission on 16, including the cancellation.

As for upgrading a call, I heard a rather panicked Pan Pan in Portsmouth Harbour a few years ago. The CG responded correctly, but with a very definite "now what, you poor little thing" tone of voice. "We're on fire" Yeah, that one got upgraded.

I can'remember the outcome for the boat, but everyone on board was fine.

 

[Juan Twothree]

When I hear a mayday incident over the radio, the CG tends to out a DSC alert for every transmission on 16, including the cancellation.

As for upgrading a call, I heard a rather panicked Pan Pan in Portsmouth Harbour a few years ago. The CG responded correctly, but with a very definite "now what, you poor little thing" tone of voice. "We're on fire" Yeah, that one got upgraded.

I can'remember the outcome for the boat, but everyone on board was fine.

I was involved in something very similar, many years ago.

Yacht on fire following a gas leak, both crew abandoning into the sea in the dark without lifejackets (they were stored in the foreward cabin, but the whole of the saloon was very much on fire and inaccessible).

Just before going in the water, the skipper issued a pan pan.

 

[justanothersailboat]

I've heard maydays that I wondered if they were really maydays*, but pan pan for a real disaster is much more worrying. I hope that's very rare.

*(and felt a bit guilty for thinking that)

 

[KevinV]

I was involved in something very similar, many years ago.

Yacht on fire following a gas leak, both crew abandoning into the sea in the dark without lifejackets (they were stored in the foreward cabin, but the whole of the saloon was very much on fire and inaccessible).

Just before going in the water, the skipper issued a pan pan.

Stiff upper lip old boy, let them know we're British, what!

 

[Mark-1]

I've heard maydays that I wondered if they were really maydays*, but pan pan for a real disaster is much more worrying. I hope that's very rare.

*(and felt a bit guilty for thinking that)

I would imagine/hope that would be fine because I would imagine/hope the response is based on the situation rather than the chosen voice protocol. So hopefully a pan-pan for a fire generates a fast response whereas a mayday for lost sunglasses generates no response.

I suppose the one issue is that maydays tend to cut through the noise for nearby vessels but so do pan pans, so probably no drama.

 

[Stemar]

The "mayday for lost sunglasses" must be annoying, but I'm sure CG would rather we called in a problem early than wait until it becomes urgent. A leisurely chug out to tow a boat in is a far better day for all concerned than having to scramble a helicopter and only finding bodies.

 

[lustyd]

I have no problem with any person in distress sending a DSC distress. I do have a problem with the CG sending a distress alert an hour after everyone is safe and there’s no urgency needed. I can’t see how they consider it acceptable but as said above I assume there’s a report and target attached.

 

[ylop]

I have no problem with any person in distress sending a DSC distress. I do have a problem with the CG sending a distress alert an hour after everyone is safe and there’s no urgency needed. I can’t see how they consider it acceptable

Why don’t you call the OPs room (at a typically quiet time) and see if they can explain it to you? Either they don’t understand the consequences of their actions (unlikely but not impossible) or you don’t understand what they are actually doing. In my experience a polite request will get a sensible answer - bear in mind that the ops staff may never have been on a yacht and so may not appreciate fully the minor inconvenience a DSC alert screeching down below causes but are usually quite keen to understand more about their “customers”.

but as said above I assume there’s a report and target attached.

I doubt it. It seems possible to me the protocol says they have to send DSC Distress Cancelled message at the conclusion of the incident and either (i) they forgot to send / skipped the DSC message to initiate it and their software therefore first sends a distress message! OR (ii) they did send the message but for some reason you didn’t get the original, but your radio doesn’t filter out Distress Cancelled from Distress (no idea if it should)

I appreciate you get a lot more distress messages on the south coast than I do up here, but is it a major issue to be rudely alerted to the fact that essentially Ch16 is now back open for the usual drivel?

 

[lustyd]

but is it a major issue to be rudely alerted to the fact that essentially Ch16 is now back open for the usual drivel?

Yes it is. Using specifically a distress alert for anything other than distress makes the whole system a farce. As I said, I’ve specifically filtered out all messages other than distress. I don’t need my radio screeching to tell me there’s a weather update and I certainly don’t need it screeching to tell me everything is fine.

 

[Iliade]

OP - Does your VHF (still) correctly distinguish between the two types of message? The issue could perhaps be at your end? Or maybe their radio has become confused, presumably it is controlled by a computer and isn't just a boaty set?

Mine certainly squawks hideously whenever the French CG do anything, and they are at least 75Nm away!

 

[ylop]

Yes it is. Using specifically a distress alert for anything other than distress makes the whole system a farce. As I said, I’ve specifically filtered out all messages other than distress. I don’t need my radio screeching to tell me there’s a weather update and I certainly don’t need it screeching to tell me everything is fine.

well I think you are shouting at pigeons here - but the CG might be able to shed some light on it. My gut feel is that they send a DSC DISTRESS CANCELLED message and as that is a subset of distress your radio is unable to filter it out. They will likely tell you the ITU rules require them to send that message if the ship in distress doesn’t do it. The question to me is why when they upgraded the voice call to DISTRESS didn’t you receive a DSC call at that time - but it it turns out that is a failing their side… you might be about to double the number of distress calls that interrupt your snoozing…

Assuming this is the CG normal mode of operation it might be interesting to see if owners of other brands of radio also get these alerts or if any manage to automatically mute cancel messages…

It should be easier for you to work out what’s normal down there than it is for me - I think I only heard one MAYDAY all of last season, and rarely more than one PAN PAN in a day.

 

[Stemar]

I can live with distress calls, even if they disturb my nap, after all, if I can do something useful, I'd hate to miss it. The ones that do get annoying are the Cross Jobourg alerts when they give weather and traffic reports, which are totally irrelevant to me.

 

[lustyd]

well I think you are shouting at pigeons here - but the CG might be able to shed some light on it. My gut feel is that they send a DSC DISTRESS CANCELLED message and as that is a subset of distress your radio is unable to filter it out. They will likely tell you the ITU rules require them to send that message if the ship in distress doesn’t do it. The question to me is why when they upgraded the voice call to DISTRESS didn’t you receive a DSC call at that time - but it it turns out that is a failing their side… you might be about to double the number of distress calls that interrupt your snoozing…

Assuming this is the CG normal mode of operation it might be interesting to see if owners of other brands of radio also get these alerts or if any manage to automatically mute cancel messages…

It should be easier for you to work out what’s normal down there than it is for me - I think I only heard one MAYDAY all of last season, and rarely more than one PAN PAN in a day.

Yes it could well be that my set doesn’t distinguish, in which case this is a problem with the spec as I’ve never seen a consumer device do that.
No, there definitely wasn’t a DSC from the boat in distress, he didn’t even call a mayday he just asked for assistance from nearby vessels.
We had three “mayday” calls on just that day alone. I don’t think any of them actually initiated a mayday from the boat end. Meanwhile we were battling the conditions and trying to sail our own boat while also silencing non urgent alarms. Eventually I turned off the VHF