Category: Watchkeeping

Few things come to grate as much on cruiser’s nerves as listening to the incessant chatter on the international VHF hailing and distress frequency, 156.800 Mhz on your FM dial, or channel 16 on marine VHF sets.  In many parts of the world, the frequency is used and abused to capacity, with transmissions by users expert and amateur alike crowding it during daylight hours and often well into the evening.

You are forced to endure this by law and custom if you can stand to have the radio on at all; FCC regulations require any vessel with a VHF set turned on (and vessels over 20 meters, or those in commercial use, must leave their VHF on) and not otherwise in use to monitor (or “guard” in radio parlance) channel 16.  The reason for this is simple; it dramatically expands the number of stations and coverage to pick up distress calls, VHF being a relatively localized (within line of site, give or take, which generally isn’t over 40 miles at any point on the gentle curve of the ocean) technology.  Moreover, since everyone is required to be on the channel, its secondary use as a hailing frequency is almost a given.  If you want to contact someone, or vice versa, you know where they will be listening.

The problem generally arises with users forgetting that the channel is only supposed to be used for making initial contact, or for emergencies.  Rather than making contact and then switching to a less populated frequency (since 16 is a simplex frequency; only one station can understandably transmit across it at a given time, crowding out anyone else who may need it) they will carry on their extended conversations there, subjecting the rest of us to generally boring drivel and blocking others trying to make contact… or, god forbid, who need help in an actual emergency.

Still, it’s a fascinating snapshot of the world if you have the patience for it.  I take a certain arcane pleasure in observing expert users over the air.  A Coast Guard officer using the obscure “ordinal” for “degree” when relaying a transmission; a particularly polished securite call from a surveying vessel.  Maybe I’m excessively nerdy, but I think those are cool, and I count radio watch as one of the more entertaining aspects of watchkeeping.  We’ve overhead two plane crashes, two vessels go down, and any number of minor medical dramas in addition to the more mundane “…the Coast Guard has received a report of an overturned kayak…” calls.  It’s just like reality TV!

But unlike reality TV, you have to put up with the mundane in addition to the interesting.  My observation has been that usage patterns and expertise vary with locality.  In the heavily populated waters of the lower Inside Passage, amateurs dominate, with spurious calls, over-frequent hails, and clumsy techniques that waste air time.  On the West Coast of Vancouver Island, and further north up the Inside Passage, more professional use predominates.

It’s a bit hard to define this but you know it when you hear it.  Consider this classic example of a hailing call:

“Why Knot, Why Knot, Why Knot, this is Sailaway, Sailaway, Sailaway on channel one six, over.”

“Sailaway, this is Why Knot, over.”

“Why Knot, let’s go to channel six eight, six eight please, over.”

“Sailaway, Why Knot moving to channel six eight, out.”

It’s textbook, right out of Chapman’s, and neither the FCC nor the Coast Guard will call you to account for it.  And yet, to ears familiar with the clipped brevity of conversations on disciplined radio nets, it’s maddeningly inefficient.  Compare to this:

“Why Knot, Why Knot, Sailaway on one-six, over.”

“Sailaway, Why Knot, go ahead.”

“Go six eight.”

“Six eight, roger.”

Which accomplishes the same end, but takes half the time.  Truly familiar users get it down to two lines:

“Why Knot, Why Knot, Sailaway calling, over.”

“Sailaway, six eight.”

And Sailaway might simply acknowledge with two quick mike clicks, if that.

It’s a pleasure sharing the air waves with such considerate and professional users.

On the other hand, few things are more disturbing than overhearing, as I did last summer near the northern tip of Vancouver Island, the voice of a grizzled older gentleman announcing the following:

“Sea King, Sea King, Sea King, this is Boy Toy, Boy Toy.”

Sometimes maybe it’s better to just turn it off.

If I had a fancier camera, or if Insegrevious were a more stable camera platform, I would make a regular feature of comparison photographs of nautical objects taken first from far away and then from up close. I find identification difficult and wonder how many other people share my curse. It’s not even a vision thing; my wife has much worse eyesight than I do, yet she can often spot and identify objects before I can. It’s something about how my brain is wired that it can’t decide what it is looking at.

Is it a floating flock of seagulls ahead? Or crab-pot hell? An indistinct white dot against the shoreline; breakers over a rock, or an idling Bayliner? Two masts appear on the horizon; a tame and friendly ketch crossing, or is it a fishing trawler coming at you on autopilot? Is that a line of kayakers, or a low-lying reef? Then there is the always popular game for kids and watchkeepers, “How many sportfishermen can you find in this picture?” You’ll always miss at least one!

The issue is exacerbated in a stern cockpit sailboat, where the helm is situated at the worst possible place to see anything that matters most, ie, ahead of you. You’re often lower than the bow by some few feet, and there is the whole mess of sails, masts, ventilators, hatches, lifelines and pulpits ahead of you. It would amaze wildlife biologists what size of whale you can effectively hide behind a one inch lifeline stanchion, and it’s a phenomena that I feel should be further researched as it almost certainly holds vital keys to the preservation of the species from the depredations of whalers.

Then, on our boat and many others in the chilly Pacific Northwest, you have the dodger with its plastic windows that distort and hide objects on the other side. I often spend my watches huddled beneath the warmth of the dodger and amuse myself with the manner in which it turns all sorts of obstacles into rather poor Van Gogh knock-offs. While a boon to the arts community, this probably isn’t exactly in the finest traditions of seamanship.

So, partly of necessity and partly through my own cowardice, I spend many watches in fear of running down whales, kayakers, and fishermen in Zodiacs (well, I’m actually a little encouraged at the prospect of running down sportfishermen, savoring the possibility of the tables being turned for once, but you don’t exactly get to choose), enjoying the fine vistas off the beams and stern and then realizing with a start that I haven’t had a good look dead ahead in some time now. It’s amazing what leaps out at you in those moments of panicked clarity and, as if through some sort of adrenaline-driven super-power, I have yet to nail all manner of deadheads, crab pots, and aquatic mammals, but I am sure it’s only a matter of time.