Why does the coastguard do this?

[Plum]

Aren't they the same people? Don't they all sit in a windowless office in Fareham, just off the M27?

Fareham does:
Portland
Solent
Dover
Aberdeen
Shetland
Stornoway
Belfast
Holyhead
Milford Haven
Falmouth
Humber

No, they don't, and you can add London Coastguard to your list.

 

[dunedin]

Perhaps the ships were unable to respond if , for example, they were confined by draft or if the rescue would have put the ships at risk?
Perhaps the coastguard and the ships did communicate. But if that was via DSC you would not have heard it .

They were small commercial vessels under 50m and shallower draft than me. More importantly one had a RIB that could have been dropped to do the rescue. Lifeboat took an hour to arrive, by which time the kayaker may not have survived if handed manage to clunb up rocks

 

[st599]

Who told you that.....

This forum, about 10 years ago: Coastguard VHF radio areas-

 

[Momac]

They were small commercial vessels under 50m and shallower draft than me. More importantly one had a RIB that could have been dropped to do the rescue. Lifeboat took an hour to arrive, by which time the kayaker may not have survived if handed manage to clunb up rocks

Sounds like the one with the rib should have helped.


Our locations

 

[Juan Twothree]

Aren't they the same people? Don't they all sit in a windowless office in Fareham, just off the M27?

Fareham does:
Portland
Solent
Dover
Aberdeen
Shetland
Stornoway
Belfast
Holyhead
Milford Haven
Falmouth
Humber

As others have already replied, no.
However, they can all log in as each other, which they do from time to time to share the workload, or for practice to become familiar with another area.

Logging in as another CG station brings up that station's aerial sites, lifeboats, CRTs and other assets, and also switches over the phone lines.

 

[justanothersailboat]

Putting my GIS hat on, yes it's feasible but would be enormously labour intensive to set up (I did something related to this for Antarctica; I have spent MANY man-months on it (see A placename geography for Antarctica - NERC Open Research Archive)). There's also issues about which side of peninsulae and islands you are, not to mention reefs and sandbanks. And, of course, the issues already mentioned about duplicate names to which I'll add names in multiple languages - Welsh, Irish and Gaelic are all possibilities in the UK!

All this is potentially solvable, but not without substantial effort and significant computing resources.

Fair enough on the effort front, though I think you're imagining it done to a higher standard than I was. On the computing resources front, I work in a technology field and I think I'm a bit spoiled, but this seems not that big to me. (edit - read your abstract and it definitely covers a harder naming problem and geographical situation than I think you would have to tackle to provide basic utility in UK waters. I do like your idea of adding on a "near/east of..." (hazard such as a sandbank) as a third layer though.)

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Fair enough on the effort front, though I think you're imagining it done to a higher standard than I was. On the computing resources front, I work in a technology field and I think I'm a bit spoiled, but this seems not that big to me. (edit - read your abstract and it definitely covers a harder naming problem and geographical situation than I think you would have to tackle to provide basic utility in UK waters. I do like your idea of adding on a "near/east of..." (hazard such as a sandbank) as a third layer though).

Harder in some ways, easier in others. Despite being much larger than the UK, Antarctica has fewer named features, even considering only coastal features for the UK, as most of it is flat and white with very little human geography! Also, by international agreement duplicate names are not allowed in official gazetteers (but multiple names for the same feature are ubiquitous). There are one or two historical ones (the only one I can think of offhand is Penguin Island, but there are a few others), but on the whole names are unique. The difficulty is the political aspect.

The computational difficulty would mainly arise from determining feasible sea directions, where every possible option would have to be intersected with a set of "no go" polygons (land, shallows etc). I'm not sure what the formal complexity is, but it's a brute force algorithm; there are speed-ups available, but they won't save much. It's not in the same league as some 3d graphics problems, but it's memory and I/O intensive. We're not talking supercomputers, though, but we are talking about the sort of machine you're probably used to. The Mapping and Geographic Information Centre always had the highest performance single user machines in the organization!

 

[chrishscorp]

I have been in the JRCC on the ops room floor, they all try to answer as UK Coastguard, to be fair with the screens they have, with a click of a mouse they can call up any charted area in the UK and 1/2 way across the Atlantic and 3 clicks of the mouse and they can take over the running of another area hence the need to say UKCG rather than Solent or Belfast etc. They struggle to hold staff as lots want to work from home....
I will have a chat with one of the senior controllers and say we all want a description of the area not just a lat and long and he is a sailor but i think a lot arnt.

 

[MADRIGAL]

Could it be some kind of international protocol to include those that don't have English as their first language?

Like the International Code of Signals?
OV A080 R10 = "Mines are believed to be bearing 080 from this station at range 10 nautical miles."

 

[Aja]

This forum, about 10 years ago: Coastguard VHF radio areas-

Common mistake, @st599. Don't believe everything you read on here.

 

[capnsensible]

Like the International Code of Signals?
OV A080 R10 = "Mines are believed to be bearing 080 from this station at range 10 nautical miles."

Yeah that's probably exactly what everyone needs.

 

[Juan Twothree]

Common mistake, @st599. Don't believe everything you read on here.

Things have changed a bit since then.
For a few weeks after Thames CG closed, Fareham was covering the old Thames area, but with several former Thames staff working down there temporarily to smooth the transition.

After that, and once Dover came onto the new network, Thames's area was split between Dover and Humber, and it's usually only covered by Dover now.

We had a bit of an issue last year however, when Fareham were covering due to staff shortages at Dover, and they insisted on being called as, and replying as, Solent CG. That was addressed, as it caused a lot of confusion. The protocol is that whoever is covering a particular zone should use the call sign of the CG station that usually covers it.

So anywhere in the old Thames CG area, from Shingle Street to wherever Dover cover to now (Dungeness?), you should call Dover CG, and they should answer as that, even if another station is covering.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I'm afraid I would simply call "Coastguard"! But I'm not in the habit of calling them.

 

[Juan Twothree]

I'm afraid I would simply call "Coastguard"! But I'm not in the habit of calling them.

That would work.
They can see which aerials you are hitting and at what strength, so can work out if it's them who needs to answer, or their flank station.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

That would work.
They can see which aerials you are hitting and at what strength, so can work out if it's them who needs to answer, or their flank station.

Sailing out of Hamford Water, I think it's Thames, but Humber is possible too.

 

[RivalRedwing]

Things have changed a bit since then.
For a few weeks after Thames CG closed, Fareham was covering the old Thames area, but with several former Thames staff working down there temporarily to smooth the transition.

After that, and once Dover came onto the new network, Thames's area was split between Dover and Humber, and it's usually only covered by Dover now.

We had a bit of an issue last year however, when Fareham were covering due to staff shortages at Dover, and they insisted on being called as, and replying as, Solent CG. That was addressed, as it caused a lot of confusion. The protocol is that whoever is covering a particular zone should use the call sign of the CG station that usually covers it.

So anywhere in the old Thames CG area, from Shingle Street to wherever Dover cover to now (Dungeness?), you should call Dover CG, and they should answer as that, even if another station is covering.

I miss Thames

 

[boomerangben]

Deleted. Duplicated

 

[boomerangben]

Possible solution is a chronograph pencil in cockpit, on a lanyard if you like. Plenty of white plastic surface to write on. Then compare with your position in slow time.

Place names are pain in the arse in NW Scotland as often duplicated and unpronounceable, or at least pronounced differently by locals and visitors. Lat and long whilst not the easiest to use are universal and one of the few standalone locators that can be directly entered into a huge number of different nav devices.

I guess it’s all down to how you specify your nav and coms and how much thought is given to how you can respond to a Mayday based on standard CG protocols

 

[Aja]

Possible solution is a chronograph pencil in cockpit, on a lanyard if you like. Plenty of white plastic surface to write on. Then compare with your position in slow time.

Place names are pain in the arse in NW Scotland as often duplicated and unpronounceable, or at least pronounced differently by locals and visitors. Lat and long whilst not the easiest to use are universal and one of the few standalone locators that can be directly entered into a huge number of different nav devices.

I guess it’s all down to how you specify your nav and coms and how much thought is given to how you can respond to a Mayday based on standard CG protocols

I agree. Giving your position as just off East Loch Tarbert doesn't work, although you might get responses from Belfast and Stornoway!

 

[Aja]

I'm afraid I would simply call "Coastguard"! But I'm not in the habit of calling them.

However, for example, if you were calling Belfast CG I, as a vessel, would tend to ignore your call if I was in the Stornoway (eg north of Crinan) area.