Well, enough to sustain a thriving flotilla business all around the world. Experienced sailors do go on flotillas for the social aspect, but the majority are relatively new and some have never set foot on a yacht before. As a teenager our family holiday every year was a Sunsail flotilla, and there were always several boats who were complete beginners, with Dad having done a three-morning course at the Beach Club (like a casual hotel with dinghies) the week before.
I'm not so much talking about people chartering from Sunsail in the UK, but people who started their sailing at a Mediterranean Beach Club where you call the beach shack before taking out a "dayboat" (retired flotilla yacht stationed at the clubs for daysailing).
Only if they know to do that. But if they turn the radio on and hear someone calling Solent Coastguard on 16, and Solent giving a reply, why would they not follow suit?
If you believe that then you'd really spit your dummy on hearing the VHF traffic in flotilla areas.
It's often the kids delegated to work the radio while Mum and Dad are busy on deck, and they don't always realise that it isn't a telephone. We still joke about the two eight year olds we heard rambling on and on trying to work out where each other were, culminating with -
"Nimble Nimble Nimble this is Nimrod Nimrod Nimrod, can you see us now? We are signaling with our teapot lid!"
Pete
Surely you don't have to be licenced to transmit on 16? I would have thought anyone with an operators licence is free to transmit...
The NCI will have a specific coast station license a bit like a marina can only transmit on Ch80
They are only public channels for marine use - that doesn't include coastal stations.
So how does the coastguard get round that one? Surely it would be a waste of a facility to exclude the NCI (if they are) from communicating on ch16 in appropriate circumstances...They are only public channels for marine use - that doesn't include coastal stations.
Now if the station were floating that would be a different matter
) an operator's certificate of competence, and one of the terms of your Ship Station License is that only people with such a certificate are allowed to use the equipment (or others under supervision). Not all coast station licenses include that term, and the certificate itself confers no particular rights on its own. The key to everything is the Station License, not the operator's ticket.
No, you're misunderstanding or have forgotten what you said back in #39.You certainly do
You (I assume) and I have a Ship Station license, which allows us to use any of the normal marine VHF channels. But Coast Radio Station licenses are much more restrictive, and generally specify one channel or a small number of them.
If we're being pedantic, there's no such thing as an "operator's license".
You have (again, I assume
They have a license for the appropriate channels, obviously (which may be "all of them" for all I know).
They only got a license at all last year, but gave good service for a couple of decades before that. Generally they're in touch with the Coastguard by phone, and the Coastguard handle the comms for any incident. That's their job, after all.
Pete
As I thought. All makes good sense - except to pedants perhaps...
