DSC Radios and Mayday calls

An accident report recently published by the MAIB revealed that the skipper of the striken vessel had sent an incomplete Mayday message before abandoning his vessel.

AchieveMaydayMessage

The skipper realised that the Coastguard had misheard but mistakenly beleived that the MOB Guardian system would immediately issue an alert.

Although the vessel’s DSC enabled VHF radio and the MOB Guardian system both had distress call buttons capable of immediately transmitting vessel details and position, neither was used to send out a “Mayday” call.  The “Mayday” call transmitted by the skipper over VHF channel 16 was incomplete, led to confusion and resulted in the rescue efforts being delayed by more than 45 minutes. 

The MAIB have published a safety flyer that provides a summary of what happened and the lessons that we can all learn from this accident.