Eavesdropping on VHF

[DanTribe]

We were gale bound this morning in a snug anchorage and overhead a call to the Coastguard on Ch 67, along the lines of :

Caller " hello coastguard, this is yacht Tyro, to inform you of our intention to leave Somewhere Creek and carry out manouvres in the main river. [our response was "good luck to you" [ironic]]

CG Thanks for the information can you give me your details?

Tyro 20ft sailing boat, new to us, 1st trial sail. [our response "don't go]

CG How many persons on board and do you have emergency equipment ?

Tyro 4 adults and a child, we are all wearing emergency equipment as we are intending to carry out man overboard drill .
[our response NO!]

CG all noted please call to let us know when you return.

I don't believe that authorities should be allowed to tell us when we can go sailing, but it did make me wonder if Coastguards could be given a form of words to use to make people think twice?

Something like,
Are you aware of the forecast / gale warning?
Are you confident that your vessel is equipped and maintained for today's conditions?
Are you confident of your ability to cope with the conditions?
or
Can we have the phone number of your next of kin?

To be fair, the yacht did call back later and said he had returned and had found the conditions a bit more boisterous than expected, so fair dues, at least he had a go. Unlike us, skulking in a warm cabin.

 

[Lucky Duck]

In the past I have heard the Coastguard ask people filing 'traffic reports' if they had heard the weather forecast.

Similarly I remember asking Dover coastguard for information on visibility in the Dover Straight (it was a peas Souper in Ramsgate) and they quite instant that crossing wouldn't be wise.

 

[Bosun Higgs]

In the past I have heard the Coastguard ask people filing 'traffic reports' if they had heard the weather forecast.

.

So have I.

 

[NealB]

Well, depends on:

- which creek?
- which river?

(eg heading out from Althorne Creek to a well sheltered part of the Crouch, is not that adventurous, is it?)

- how experienced is the skipper?

(ie Ellen McArthur wouldn't cause concern, a genuine sailing 'tyro' would be a worry).

Personally, I think the coastguard are right to let us make our own decisions.

Arthur Ransome got it right, in my view, ("if not duffers.....").

 

[Seajet]

In the old days of ' link calls ' via Niton Radio on the IOW it was common practice to eavesdrop on calls, a family I know listened to fishing boats and played ' count the swearwords '.

My favourite I heard was a Merchant Sailor calling his wife from thousands of miles away, " You've done WHAT to the car ? ! "

 

[pagoda]

In the old days of ' link calls ' via Niton Radio on the IOW it was common practice to eavesdrop on calls, a family I know listened to fishing boats and played ' count the swearwords '.

My favourite I heard was a Merchant Sailor calling his wife from thousands of miles away, " You've done WHAT to the car ? ! "

+1

I remember working offshore when calls to the beach were made through Wick or Stonehaven Radio on 2182. Very slowly and systematically, you would wait for your turn. Most people realised it was utterly public, some (as above) had not a clue .
Absolutely hilarious listening to men & women airing all sorts of problems on air. If it was something tragic ,the Radio Op would switch channel and listen on phones, otherwise you waited for your slot. It was bloomin expensive to do a reverse charge link call too!
Satellite links today, direct dial etc, and Radio Ops do little more than chat to choppers and supply boats.

 

[jac]

Interesting one this.

In a sheltered location, going out is fine and it's a good way to understand how your boat behaves in 30 knots, or to try a MOB in a realistic situation.

A noob going to sea for the first time in a new to them boat is a completely different thing!

 

[AMCD300]

Well, depends on:

- which creek?
- which river?

(eg heading out from Althorne Creek to a well sheltered part of the Crouch, is not that adventurous, is it?)

- how experienced is the skipper?

(ie Ellen McArthur wouldn't cause concern, a genuine sailing 'tyro' would be a worry).

Personally, I think the coastguard are right to let us make our own decisions.

Arthur Ransome got it right, in my view, ("if not duffers.....").

+1

The very fact the skipper filed a plan with the CG in the first instance suggests he is a little more savvy than your average Italian MOBO...

...speaking from recent experience that is...

IRPCS? In Naples? Pah...

Real Italian Stallions laugh in the face of such trivialities...

 

[Sgeir]

TBH, we eavesdrop for entertainment. In the area between Jura and Skye, Channel 6 is worth every penny of the radio licence (that we no longer pay) for the running commentary from the fishing boats. Some of the fishing boats have a colourful turn of phrase using one word in particular. Not the sort of language that one would wish to expose to one's wife or servants.

The whale watching boats tend to use Channel 8 which can be helpful if you have people on board who'd like to see cetaceans.

 

[DanTribe]

Well, depends on:

- which creek?
- which river?

(eg heading out from Althorne Creek to a well sheltered part of the Crouch, is not that adventurous, is it?)

- how experienced is the skipper?

(ie Ellen McArthur wouldn't cause concern, a genuine sailing 'tyro' would be a worry).

Personally, I think the coastguard are right to let us make our own decisions.

Arthur Ransome got it right, in my view, ("if not duffers.....").

It was a creek off the Medway, we understood they were heading out into the Thames.
One of my company said that he sounded as if he was hoping to be told not to go.

 

[Powersalt]

In the old days of ' link calls ' via Niton Radio on the IOW it was common practice to eavesdrop on calls, a family I know listened to fishing boats and played ' count the swearwords '.

My favourite I heard was a Merchant Sailor calling his wife from thousands of miles away, " You've done WHAT to the car ? ! "

Of course we can all remember the paper we signed to say we would not listen in to calls and anything we heard was confidential

 

[Babylon]

It was a creek off the Medway, we understood they were heading out into the Thames.
One of my company said that he sounded as if he was hoping to be told not to go.

Its possible that he was under peer pressure from his crew, with a dissenter (maybe the misses) pressuring him the other way?

Anyway, during my own passage from Hamble to Cowes yesterday in F8 wind-over-tide conditions I realised that this was the first time I'd been out in conditions which would have made recovering a MOB virtually impossible: that was sobering!

 

[nathanlee]

(eg heading out from Althorne Creek to a well sheltered part of the Crouch, is not that adventurous, is it?)

It was the weekend before last. Wind over tide was kicking up a right pitchy journey down river. Would've been very, very wet in a 20footer.

 

[TSB240]

Thread drift but worth it.

An excerpt from a recent call by a forumite to Liverpool coastguard informing them of there intention to go to the Isle of man.

Forumite "Yes this is S****n we have two persons, a dog and a parott on board."

Liverpool coastgard "Please can you repeat your last transmission......

"Coastguard this is S****n I repeat crew of two persons on board and a dog and a parott"

LCG " I thought that was what you said have a good trip!"

Not overheard but I wish I had!

 

[Sgeir]

Thread drift but worth it.

An excerpt from a recent call by a forumite to Liverpool coastguard informing them of there intention to go to the Isle of man.

Forumite "Yes this is S****n we have two persons, a dog and a parott on board."

Liverpool coastgard "Please can you repeat your last transmission......

"Coastguard this is S****n I repeat crew of two persons on board and a dog and a parott"

LCG " I thought that was what you said have a good trip!"

Not overheard but I wish I had!

We heard a ferry leaving Rosslare declaring 256 persons and one elephant.

 

[maby]

It was a creek off the Medway, we understood they were heading out into the Thames.
One of my company said that he sounded as if he was hoping to be told not to go.

My wife and I listened to this exchange with a degree of disbelief - they were not proposing to head out onto the Thames - just potter up the Medway and do a few MOB exercises. The coastguard were remarkably restrained - I was expecting the reply to be "OK - so what?"

Would be interesting to find out who told the radio operator that it was ok to make this sort of call. I can't imagine it coming from any instructor on an RYA radio course.

 

[savageseadog]

I think routine traffic calls are a stupid idea, why we should expect coastguard to need or want to know what nonsense we're doing in our boats is a mystery to me. Ditto radio checks.

 

[prv]

I think routine traffic calls are a stupid idea, why we should expect coastguard to need or want to know what nonsense we're doing in our boats is a mystery to me. Ditto radio checks.

They don't need or want to know. They offer to accept your information in case you want someone ashore to know where you are but have no-one suitable to tell. They don't do anything with it beyond noting it down in their watch log in case anyone ever asks later. They explicitly do not take any action if you're "overdue", as there would be constant false alarms from people forgetting to report in.

The Irish equivalent of the MAIB put out a report a few years ago which recommended, among other things, that all leisure boats report to the Coastguard on departure and arrival. They sent a courtesy copy to the UK Coastguard in case they had any relevant comments on the report as a whole. The only response from our Coastguard was that they don't want all leisure movements reported to them and they don't advise people to do it.

Pete

 

[maby]

They don't need or want to know. They offer to accept your information in case you want someone ashore to know where you are but have no-one suitable to tell. They don't do anything with it beyond noting it down in their watch log in case anyone ever asks later. They explicitly do not take any action if you're "overdue", as there would be constant false alarms from people forgetting to report in.

The Irish equivalent of the MAIB put out a report a few years ago which recommended, among other things, that all leisure boats report to the Coastguard on departure and arrival. They sent a courtesy copy to the UK Coastguard in case they had any relevant comments on the report as a whole. The only response from our Coastguard was that they don't want all leisure movements reported to them and they don't advise people to do it.

Pete

I've been known to call the coastguard with a passage plan if we are setting out on a significant journey that is going to take us out of sight of land - and they were polite and accepted my call. The call being discussed here was from a boat anchored up in a creek that is about 8m deep off a river about 4 or five miles from the Thames Estuary - and telling the CG that they were going to potter up river for an hour or two! It really did show great restraint on behalf of the CG.

Radio checks are also an embarrasment sometimes. I have been known to make a radio check call after I've done some significant work on the electronics - but there are a lot of people who seem to do it every day - sometimes twice a day!

 

[[70521]]

A non boaty story...

One dark night blowing a hooly a Mountain Rescue Team on a difficult rescue. I was the radio link to the forward team and thought I heard the "F" word muttered by one of our more vocal climbers, but could not be sure. Two weeks later a very nice letter from the Home Office arrived reminding us that swearing was not allowed on their frequency! We could only guess how they picked that up.