When it goes wrong

VHF distress traffic has two tiers and the difference matters. MAYDAY is for grave and imminent danger to vessel or life — sinking, fire, person overboard and lost from sight. PAN-PANPan-PanThe urgency call: safety at risk, but no immediate danger to life.full glossary → is urgency without immediate danger to life: engine dead and drifting towards trouble, a medical problem needing advice. Using Mayday for a Pan-Pan situation diverts lifeboats from someone who might need them more.

A voice Mayday follows a fixed skeleton, and the order exists so rescuers get the essentials even if the transmission dies halfway: MAYDAY three times; this is, with the vessel’s name three times (plus MMSIMMSIYour radio’s nine-digit identity number, from the ship’s radio licence.full glossary → and callsign if you carry them); MAYDAY and the name once; position; nature of the distress; assistance required; number of people on board; any other information — then “over”. Position first among the details, always: a rescuer with nothing but a position can still come. A DSCDSCDigital Selective Calling — the radio’s data "doorbell", including the red distress button.full glossary → radio sends an automated distress alert with your position at the press of the red button — press it, then make the voice call.

An EPIRBEPIRBThe boat’s registered satellite distress beacon — floats free and transmits your identity and position for days.full glossary → or PLBPLBA pocket-sized personal satellite distress beacon, registered to a person.full glossary →, once activated, transmits your position to the satellite rescue system and keeps transmitting; flares are the short-range language — red parachute or handheld for distress, orange smoke by day. Know where each lives before you need it in the dark.

And the FULL catalogue of recognised distress signals, because someday you may need to improvise — or to recognise someone else’s: SOS by any means (· · · — — — · · ·); the spoken word MAYDAY; code flags N over C; a square shape with a ball above or below it; continuous sounding of the foghorn; slowly and repeatedly raising and lowering outstretched arms; flames on the vessel; and the modern electronic “flares” (high-intensity lasers/strobes) that supplement pyrotechnics. Seeing any of them creates the same duty in you that you would hope for in others: respond, or relay.

Keeping it theoretical

Lifejackets work when worn, not stowed — the modern habit is to wear them on deck as a matter of course, and always at night, in fog, when reefedreefingReducing sail area so the boat copes better in stronger wind. Done early, it is easy.full glossary → or in the dinghy; a crutch strap and a light make one worth wearing. Person overboard drill, first seconds: shout, throw flotation, point — one crew does nothing but point — press the MOB button, and get the engine started with the propeller well clear before any pick-up approach. Under sail, the two classic returns are the CRASH STOP (immediately round head-to-wind, everything flogging, stopping the boat within metres of the casualty) and the REACH-AWAY-REACH-BACK (sail off on a beam reachbeam reachSailing with the wind square across the side — usually the fastest, most comfortable point of sail.full glossary →, tack, reach back to arrive slowly, under control, from downwind); both end the same way — boat stopped, casualty alongside the leeward shrouds, propeller dead.

Better than recovering a casualty is keeping them attached: harnesses and tethers clip to jackstaysjackstaysThe webbing lines along the deck you clip a harness tether to.full glossary → (the webbing lines running the side decks) or to dedicated strong points — never to guardwires, which are not built for the load. Clip on at night, when reefed, in fog, and always before leaving the cockpitcockpitThe outdoor working/steering well, usually at the back.full glossary → for the foredeck. The discipline is to clip BEFORE you need both hands, not after.

Fire prefers prevention: gas heavier than air settles in the bilge, so the smell of gas means no switches, no flames, ventilate and pump the bilge by hand. A galleygalleyThe boat’s kitchen.full glossary → pan fire is smothered — fire blanket, never water. And the dull daily disciplines — engine checks (fuel, oil, coolant, belt, stern gland), kill cord worn and attached in the tender, gas tap off when not cooking — are the actual safety equipment; everything else is for the day they were skipped.

Gas’s quiet cousin is CARBON MONOXIDEcarbon monoxideOdourless gas from heaters and engines whose symptoms mimic seasickness. Fit an alarm; ventilate on suspicion.full glossary → — odourless, made by heaters, engines and the rafted neighbour’s generator, and heavier on the symptoms than the senses: headache, nausea and drowsiness below decks that read exactly like seasickness. The answers are an alarm (cheap, loud, fitted where people sleep) and ventilation reflexes; suspect it, and everyone goes into fresh air first and wonders second.

The kit list around all this, worth auditing each season: a lifejacket AND harness per crew; two lifebuoys with lights and a DAN BUOYdan buoyThe tall flagged float thrown to mark a person in the water.full glossary → (the tall flagged marker that makes a head in waves findable); a boarding ladder a tired swimmer can actually climb; fire extinguishers at the companionway and forward (dry powder), plus the galley fire blanket; two means of pumping the bilge and the humble bucket; torches that work; and the in-date flare pack. Equipment you have not located in the dark is equipment you do not have.

The skipper’s brief

Before the lines come in, every crew — however salty — gets the brief, because in the emergency the skipper may BE the casualty. The shape: GAS (where the tap is, what the smell means, no switches); FIRE (extinguisher and blanket locations, escape routes from the cabin); FLOOD (seacock locations, where the softwood bungs and bilge pumps live); MOB (the shout-throw-point drill, who presses the button); ABANDONING (where the raft and grab-bag are, “step UP”); and MEDICAL (the kit, who has conditions or medication the skipper should know about). Plus the deck tour: clipping points, jackstays, where not to put hands and feet.

And the rule that turns a brief into insurance: AT LEAST ONE OTHER PERSON aboard must be able to start and stop the engine, drop the sails, transmit a Mayday with the position, and bring the boat back to somewhere safe. The thirty-minute teach on a quiet morning is the cheapest safety equipment the boat will ever carry.